مطالب فن آوری صادرات، یادگیری با انجام این کار و تخصص در تجارت خارجی

We examine empirically whether countries with relatively little production and export experience specialize in the production and export of more standardized and lower-technology products, and those with more production experience produce and export more recently developed and higher-technology products. Using panel data covering 127 countries and the period between 1970 and 1997, we find that export experience does help to account for the variation in export content. Exporting experience influences a country's export mix more than its production experience, suggesting that there may be a trade-induced component of learning by doing in foreign trade specialization.

Economists have long debated how learning by doing influences product proliferation, international trade, and economic growth.1 They have also argued that potential productivity gains from learning by doing are largest for industries with high R&D and technology intensity and that such gains decline as industries mature.2 If indeed the gains from learning by doing are related to technological intensity and they are bounded from above, then combining the interplay between learning by doing with the technology content of production could be fruitful for better understanding the flows of foreign trade. Nonetheless, empirical work on how learning can affect the technology content of exports and foreign trade has so far been sparse. In this paper, we explore empirically how learning by doing, the technology content of exports and industry maturity might be related.3 In particular, we investigate whether learning by doing helps to influence the nature of cross-country specialization in production and foreign trade: do countries with less production and export experience specialize in older and low-tech goods and countries with more experience concentrate on more recently developed and high-tech products? Using panel data covering 127 countries and the period between 1970 and 1997, we find that learning by doing does help to account for the variation in export content. Countries with initially high export experience produce and export relatively new goods with higher technological intensity, whereas those with less experience deal with standardized goods with lower technological content. Furthermore, exporting experience appears to be much more relevant than production experience in determining a country's export mix, which suggests that there may be a trade-induced component of learning by doing in foreign trade specialization. Intra-industry trade, openness, and foreign direct investment also influence whether economies export mainly standardized products or non-standardized technology-intensive goods.

Learning by doing and cumulative production and export experience seem to influence productivity and production costs. However, the gains from learning by doing and production experience are largest for high-technology industries and they appear to decline as the technology contents decline and industries mature. Thus, we believe that a better understanding of the determinants of foreign trade flows would require considering the interplay between learning by doing and the technology contents of production. As a first step in this direction, we empirically investigate whether learning by doing influences the nature of cross-country specialization in production and foreign trade. Using panel data covering 127 countries and the period between 1970 and 1997, we find that learning by doing helps to account for the variation in export content. More experienced countries produce and export high-technology younger products, whereas those with less experience deal with lower-technology more mature products. Intra-industry trade and openness also influence whether economies exported mainly standardized products or non-standardized more technology-intensive goods. Finally, there appears to exist a trade-induced component of learning by doing because we find that, over the sample period, exporting experience is a better indicator of a country's export mix than production experience.