Effect of Export Product Quality on Export Product Diversification at the Extensive Margins
This paper explores the effect of improvement in export product quality on export product diversification at the extensive margins. The analysis relies on a sample of 135 countries (both developed and developing countries) over the period 1970-2014. It uses the two-step system Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) estimator to perform the empirical exercise. Results show the existence of a non-linear effect of export product quality on export product diversification at the extensive margins: improvement of export product quality in countries with low levels of export product quality leads to greater export product diversification at the extensive margins. However, countries with a high quality of export products experience greater export product concentration at the extensive margins. The SE findings have policy implications discussed in the conclusion section of the paper.