The Composition of Trade

Globally, there have been significant changes in the sectoral composition of international trade. This has an important implication to economic growth. The book explores some aspects of trade composition to explain specific issues in trade and growth literature. In particular, the following three separate, but inter-related questions are analysed: Why is the composition of exports of some developing countries becoming more similar to those of developed countries? Can we quantify the relative importance of technology and trade costs on export sophistication? What is the role of trade composition in explaining the distance puzzle? The book aims to answer the above questions using theoretical and empirical methods. These are important and timely issues in the literature. The analyses broaden the literature and shed some light into policy dialogues on the growth challenges of low-income countries.