What's So Special about China's Exports?

By Dani Rodrik. 2006

1,036 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Much more than comparative advantage and free markets have been at play in shaping China's export success. Government policies have helped nurture domestic capabilities in consumer electronics and other advanced areas that would most likely not have developed in their absence. As a result, China has ended up with an export basket that is significantly more sophisticated than what would be normally expected for a country at its income level. This has been an important determinant of China's rapid growth. What matters for China's future growth is not the volume of exports, but whether China will continue to latch on to higher-income products over time.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Finance

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/24a99b8959f6065a4b5b82fed18d5b41d2338c4b

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Citations in the corpus

The birth of edge cities in China: Measuring the effects of industrial parks policy (2017, neutral): “B C ore modern and productive sectors which have positive exter- alities on the whole economy ( Rodrik, 2006 ).”
Weighing China’s export basket: The domestic content and technology intensity of Chinese exports (2013, background): “Mostly notably, product-level studies of Rodrik (2006) and Schott (2008) suggest that the structure of the Chinese export bundle is increasingly similar to that of high-income countries.”
Journey to world top emitter: An analysis of the driving forces of China's recent CO2 emissions surge (2009, background): “To continue its impressive export orientated growth in recent years, China may need to further add value to its exports [Rodrik, 2006].”
The impact of China on Latin America and the Caribbean (2008, background): “As Rodrik (2006) has argued, the structure of China’s exports is heavily geared to high-wage/productivity products which partly explains its success in world markets.”
Development Models and Industrial Upgrading in China and Mexico (2008, background): “Rodrik (2006) suggests that China is already exporting a wide range of highly sophisticated products, and he calculates that China’s export bundle is similar to that of a country whose per capita income is three times higher than China’s current level.”
Foreign direct investment, processing trade, and the sophistication of China's exports (2009, methodology): “Some studies find that China's overall export sophistication level is exceptionally high ( Rodrik, 2006; Schott, 2008).”
Economic reforms and industrial policy in a panel of Chinese cities (2016, neutral): “…relates more generally to a large literature on liberalization and industrial policy, including speci c applications to the Chinese reform process.4 Rodrik (2006) argues that government policies creating distortions in favor of more advanced industries played an important role in the success of…”
Export upgrading and growth: the prerequisite of domestic embeddedness (2013, background): “A by now well-established empirical result is that countries specializing in more sophisticated goods subsequently grow faster (Rodrik 2006; Hausmann, Hwang and Rodrik, 2007; Hidalgo and Hausmann, 2009).”
Trade, Foreign Investment, and Industrial Policy for Developing Countries* (2009, background): “Figure 3, taken from Rodrik (2006) documents that much of China s export surge occurred simultaneously with the imposition of high tari¤s.”
China and India: Openness, Trade and Effects on Economic Growth (2011, background): “Rodrik (2006) observes that China’s (but also India’s) export shares in sophisticated products goes far beyond what is justified by comparative advantage.”
Specialization Across Varieties and North-South Competition (2007, neutral): “All in all, China is exhibiting specialization patterns at the most detailed level corresponding to countries three times as rich (Rodrik, 2007).”