Technological Trade Composition and Performance in African Countries

Blessing Chipanda (), Matthew Clance and Steven Koch
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Blessing Chipanda: Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 0002, South Africa

No 202057, Working Papers from University of Pretoria, Department of Economics

Abstract: A number of studies have found that spillovers or other externalities associated with trade are sector specific. Yet trade linkages are typically analysed at the macroeconomic aggregates. We analyse Africa's trade composition spanning 1980-2015, using a disaggregated and detailed classification by technological levels. We find that Africa is a net importer of capital goods and its technological export composition has remained highly concentrated in primary goods, which has contributed to a decline in Africa's share of global exports. We also find that regions within Africa have similar technological export composition structures. A few notable countries that have managed to transform their export composition into more semi-processed and relatively high technology exports are the leading importers of capital goods, are better financially developed and better endowed with human capital, infrastructure, and institutions than other African countries.

Keywords: Exports; imports; trade composition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F10 F19 F60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2020-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev and nep-int
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pre:wpaper:202057

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