The Review of Economics and Statistics Vol. 93 No. 2 2011
Export Diversification: What's behind the Hump?
open access
Abstract
The paper explores the evolution of export diversification patterns along the economic development path. Using a large database with 156 countries over 19 years at the HS6 level of disaggregation (4,991 product lines), we look for action at the intensive and extensive margins. We find a hump-shaped pattern of export diversification similar to what Imbs and Wacziarg (2003) found for production. Diversification and subsequent reconcentration take place mostly along the extensive margin. This hump-shaped pattern is consistent with the conjecture that countries travel across diversification cones, as discussed in Schott (2003, 2004) and Xiang (2007).
- DOI
- 10.1162/rest_a_00078
- Volume
- 93
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 590-605
- Language
- en
- Sources
- openalex crossref