Creativity, innovation, and export performance

More and more countries are turning to export promotion as an effective strategy for development. If creative activity facilitates exports, then, in order to enhance exports, it may be worthwhile for a country to focus at least a portion of its energy toward establishing a favorable environment for creativity. This paper hypothesizes that there is a positive relationship between a country's export performance and a country's creative activity. It uses simple cross-country regression analysis to test whether creativity and its four components, innovation, technology, technology transfer, and business startups, have any impact on the total value of a country's exports and on the composition of a country's exports. (c) 2005 Society for Policy Modeling. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.