The Contribution of Technological Change on EU's Exports

The competitiveness of European countries is a constant concern in an environment dominated by the globalization of markets. Export competitiveness is an important dimension of competitiveness. On top of that, in support to competitiveness, innovation is considered as a strong variable according to the Schumpeterian framework. This paper explores the relationship between technological change and international trade according to the OECD technological classification and the United Nations International System of Industrial Classification third revision for the 2 and 3 digit divisions of the manufacturing sector industry. An exploratory analysis is carried out on four European countries, namely on Belgium, France, Germany and Italy, over the period 2000-2007. The comparative analysis reveals stylized evidence based on annual growth rates of the share of exports in production, and the share of R&D intensity in production. The inferred conclusions from this preliminary inspection point towards a link between technological change and exports, although the conclusions cannot be generalized.