Specialization dynamics (original) (raw)
Technological specialization in industrial countries: Patterns and dynamics
Review of World Economics, 2001
On the other hand, the literature on innovation (Nelson and Winter 1982; Dosi 1988; Malerba 1992) has emphasized how knowledge may be specific to the agent who has produced it or/and to the environ-Remark: I am grateful to Franco Malerba for his encouragement and insightful remarks, to Danny Quah and John Sutton for very helpful comments, to Henry Overman for very fruitful discussions, to Rodolfo Helg, Alan Manning, Steve Redding and Raffaele Paci for their useful suggestions. Finally, I also wish to thank seminar participants at the LSE, Cespri (Bocconi University), University of Siena, and participants at the conference on the "Evolution of Specialization Patterns" at LIUC and the European Economic Association Conference in Bolzan. Support by the Marie Curie Research Training Programme is gratefully acknowledged. The usual disclaimer applies.
Specialization patterns in trade and technology
This involves two different, but related issues. On one hand, there is the issue of the changes in the overall degree of international technological specialization, which may be evaluated by analysing the evolution of the external shape of the RTA distribution. Do we observe an increasing specialization in a limited subset of technologies (a polarisation of the RTA distribution towards extreme values), or has the degree of specialization remained broadly unchanged? On the other hand, there is the issue of persistence versus mobility in international technological activities. This addresses questions related to the intra-distribution dynamics, such as: what is the probability that a technology moves from the upper (lower) quartile of the RTA distribution to the lower (upper) quartile? The evolution of the RTA distribution is modelled adopting a distribution dynamics approach (Quah 1993a, 1996a, 1996b, 1996c), whose features make it particularly suited to study the two issues just described. The issue of
Semiparametric analysis of the specialization-income relationship
Applied Economics …, 2008
In this paper we investigate the empirical relationship between overall specialization and per capita income. The metric we use to measure overall specialization is the median of the sectoral distribution of the Balassa index of Revealed Comparative Advantages applied to 4-digit (SITC rev.2) sectoral export manufactured data for 39 countries over the period 1985-2001. Once we take account of country specificities using fixed effects GAM, the results of the semiparametric analysis indicate that sectoral diversification of manufactured exports increases monotonically with development, and thus the reconcentration observed at high levels of income in the recent literature may not be linked to trade-induced specialization
DP2287 The Dynamics of International Specialization
1999
The theoretical literature on trade and growth suggests that comparative advantage is endogenous and evolves over time. However, most of the empirical analysis of international trade flows is essentially static in nature. This paper proposes an empirical model of the dynamics of international specialisation. Employing disaggregated data on twenty industries in seven OECD countries, we examine the evolution of patterns of international specialisation over time and evaluate the role of changes in factor endowments in ...
Abstract In this paper we investigate the complex relationship between industrial development and economic structure, by focusing on one of its trade implications, the effect of international specialisation patterns on export performances of countries. Constant-Market-Share (CMS) analysis is applied to disentangle the effect of countries’ specialisation structure from competitiveness factors. This work contributes to the methodological debate on CMS putting forward a new specification of the disaggregation formula by which countries’ share of world exports is explained as the result of seven different effects. This new specification is applied to the study of world merchandise exports between 1995 and 2007 for 208 countries in BACI database. Results are here presented for a sample of 37 countries selected among the main exporters in all regions. Our analysis proves that besides macroeconomic factors, specialisation patterns in the international distribution of economic activities ar...
Specialization, factor accumulation and development
Journal of International Economics, 2004
We estimate the effect of factor proportions on the pattern of manufacturing specialization in a cross-section of OECD countries, taking into account that factor accumulation responds to productivity. We show that the failure to control for productivity differences produces biased estimates. Our model explains 2/3 of the observed differences in the pattern of specialization between the poorest and richest OECD countries. However, because factor proportions and the pattern of specialization co-move in the development process, their strong empirical relationship is not sufficient to determine whether specialization is driven by factor proportions, or by other mechanisms also correlated with level of development.
Non-linearities in Specialization and Growth
2003
Abstract: This paper investigates the link between overall specialization and growth, analyzing the shape of the relationship between the median of the sectoral distribution of the Balassa Index, our summary measure of overall specialization, and the level of per capita income. The median of the Balassa Index distribution has an inverse relation with overall specialization.
Innovation, Specialization and Growth in a Model of Structural Change
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
The aim of this paper is to investigate the nexus between demand patterns and innovation as it stems from research efforts and the extent of specialization. In the proposed model an innovation race conducted by entrants investing in research and development against established incumbents raises productivity at the industry level and leads to a shift in the aggregate demand pattern and consequently to a redistribution of the profit fund among industries and a restructuring of the production process in each industry. The paper argues that the degree of development as reflected in a demand share distribution is characterized by a corresponding distribution of specialized sectors that becomes more even across industries as the development process proceeds and investigates the consequences in terms of economic growth.
Overall Specialization Empirics: Techniques and Applications
Open Economies Review, 2004
It is customary in the empirical trade literature to analyze specialization patterns of countries using Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) measures. This paper explores the informational content of the most commonly used RCA index: the Balassa (1965) Index of RCA. After describing the properties of the Balassa Index, we propose a research strategy based on descriptive statistics, kernel density estimation, concentration and Markov stationarity methods in order to analyze the dynamics of overall specialization.