“A thriving export sector is, as the Commission on Growth and Development states, “a critical ingredient of high growth, especially in the early stages.” [1] There is microeconomic evidence to support this claim: recent research suggests that increases in exports lead firms to produce higher-quality products, pay higher wages, and adopt more advanced technologies.[2] There is also evidence that the sophistication of a country’s exports, where the sophistication of a product is measured by the average income of countries that produce the product, is positively correlated with countries’ future growth rates.[3] It appears that growth is closely associated with moving up the quality ladder within industries, and exporting more technology-intensive and capital-intensive, higher-value-added products
