The Power of Exports
The authors systematically document remarkably high degrees of concentration in manufacturing exports for a sample of 151 countries over a range of 3,000 products. For every country manufacturing exports are dominated by a few "big hits"...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&siteName=WDS&entityID=000158349_20091019154040 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4273 |
| Summary: | The authors systematically document
remarkably high degrees of concentration in manufacturing
exports for a sample of 151 countries over a range of 3,000
products. For every country manufacturing exports are
dominated by a few "big hits" which account for
most of the export value and where the "hit"
includes both finding the right product and finding the
right market. Higher export volumes are associated with
higher degrees of concentration, after controlling for the
number of destinations a country penetrates. This further
highlights the importance of big hits. The distribution of
exports closely follows a power law, especially in the upper
tail. These findings do not support a "picking
winners" policy for export development; the power law
characterization implies that the chance of picking a winner
diminishes exponentially with the degree of success.
Moreover, given the size of the economy, developing
countries are more exposed to demand shocks than rich ones,
which further lowers the benefits from trying to pick winners. |
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