Export Competitiveness and Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence from Latin American and North African Countries

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the export competitiveness and economic diversification in Latin American and North African countries, and their impact on economic growth. Export competitiveness is measured by a set of diversification indexes inspired from the most important economic diversity indexes used in the literature. On the other hand, the relationship between export competitiveness and economic growth is evaluated by a Hodrick-Prescott filter for the economic cycle's identification. The results show that the competitiveness levels among selected countries are still divergent, and thatthe economies of some countries remain in some stationary concentrated state in terms of economic diversity.