The Impact of Technology and Structural Change on Export Performance in Nine Developing Countries

This paper focuses on nine large developing countries. Structural decomposition analysis shows that they tend to concentrate innovative activities in industries stagnating at the world level; international trends partly offset national improvements in patent shares. The same occurs for world export shares, although countries display greater adaptation to world demand. Econometric analysis suggests that technological activity is related to export gains in high technology sectors if a country expands in industries with increasing technological opportunities, in medium technology sectors if it moves away from low opportunity sectors, in low technology sectors if it is initially specialized in growing sectors. In high-tech and low-tech sectors, export performance is also affected by the growth of technical capabilities, foreign direct investments, productivity, and the initial level of technical skills and in medium tech by the growth rates of foreign direct investments.