Philipp Koch (EcoAustria – Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung)
Economic Complexity and Value-added Exports
WIFO Research Seminar, Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Wien, 09.06.2021 13:30
Veranstalter: Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung
Online seit: 17.05.2021 0:00
Research question(s): Economic complexity is typically approximated using an economy's gross export structure. Considering increasingly integrated global value chains, can economic complexity based on value-added exports better explain economic growth? Do value-added export specialisations convey a different picture of economic development from a network perspective than gross export specialisations? • Approach (empirical or theoretical models, simulation, etc.): Using value-added exports and applying non-linear iterative algorithms, I introduce a novel empirical approach to the topic of economic complexity. Moreover, in analogy to the Product Space, which uses gross exports and maps products to each other based on required capabilities, value-added exports enable a complementary visualisation of economic development and structural cross-country differences we refer to as Industry Space. • Data (if empirical, what data is used; level of aggregation; most important variables): The latest release of the World Input-Output Database is used, which covers 43 countries and 56 industries each for 2000 to 2014. • Main result(s): This approach leads to substantially different complexity rankings compared to established metrics using gross exports and the explanatory power of GDP per capita growth is considerably higher. Our study on the Industry Space emphasises the need for value-added exports in analysing economic development by providing evidence that using gross exports significantly changes the similarities between industries.
Forschungsbereich:Ohne Forschungsgruppenzuordnung
Sprache:Englisch