2009 Reports

Open Economies and Patterns of Trade

Ocampo, Jose A.; Rada, Codrina; Taylor, Lance

This chapter takes up the relationship between foreign trade and growth in developing countries in the latter part of the twentieth century. Regional diversity was again the rule, with changing patterns of trade accompanying structural transformation. Fast-growing regions generally recorded increases in shares of manufactured exports with mid and high technological content, the most impressive being the Tigers and, in its speed of transformation, China. Recently in some countries, economic growth has been associated with specialization in dynamic services such as information and communications technologies, with India standing out in this regard. In the slow-growing regions on the other hand, trade diversification and technological upgrading were far less evident. The slow growers were also subject to terms-of-trade and other external shocks.