What You Exported Matters: Persistence in Productive Capabilities across Two Eras of Globalization

Authors

Isabella M. Weber, Economics Department, University of Massachusetts AmherstFollow
Gregor Semieniuk,, Political Economy Research Institute and Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts AmherstFollow
Tom Westland, Department of History, University of Cambridge
Junshang Liang, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Working Paper Number

2021-02

Publication Date

2021

Abstract

Does what you exported matter? We build a new global commodity-level export database for the previous era of globalization and find persistence in productive capabilities proxied by economic complexity, export diversification, and sophistication across a century. We also show that productive capabilities at the turn of the 20th century are a powerful predictor of today’s income levels. We demonstrate that our results are not driven by persistence in geography or institutions. The persistence mechanism is the complementarity between past and future productive capabilities with one important qualification, the persistent negative effect of European overseas colonization. We also study shocks that undermined persistence, confirm the resource course hypothesis for the long run and find a positive but slow effect of democratization.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/21780201

License

UMass Amherst Open Access Policy

Recommended Citation

Weber, Isabella M.; Semieniuk,, Gregor; Westland, Tom; and Liang, Junshang, "What You Exported Matters: Persistence in Productive Capabilities across Two Eras of Globalization" (2021). Economics Department Working Paper Series. 299.
https://doi.org/10.7275/21780201