Identification of Factors Affecting the Exports of High-Tech Products: A Panel Data Analysis

Introduction

The surging international trade and the increase in the diversity of commercial activities accelerated capital movement between countries, and hence speed of technological developments has considerably increased (Awokuse and Christopoulos, 2009). The development of technology affects many industries such as economy, education, security and health. Technology contributes to reducing waste of time and costs for individuals, companies and even countries. Therefore, today, use of technology has become inevitable in all the lives of individuals; technological development has become a vital target for countries as well. Countries are aware that the more high-tech products they produce and export, the better they will develop in terms of economy (Castellani and Fassio, 2017).

We can define products which are based on high technology as “products light in physics, but heavy in price”. Due to this nature, products based on high technology provide extremely high added value to their economy, and therefore, high technology production is one of the factors which act as an indicator for the difference in terms of development between countries today (Fagerberg, 2000). Therefore, countries that have completely established their infrastructure investments in terms of technology production can be one step ahead of other countries in terms of development. For this reason, export products and the industries that are at the forefront of exports differ between countries. In this context, the production and export of high-tech products increases the export revenues of the countries that have adopted the export-based growth strategy and constitutes an extremely important source of financing for the growth and development of the countries (Ekananda and Parlinggoman, 2017). Therefore, the desire to be a producer of advanced technology has become a main goal of both developed and developing countries. If it has advanced technology, a country will be able to produce products with high added value, gain competitive power in international markets, as well as effectively export its products (Archibugia and Cocoa, 2005).

One of the main goals of developing countries which to increase their growth rates is to provide financial resources to their economy by producing and exporting products with high added value and advanced technology (Sandu and Ciocanel, 2014). In addition, production of high-tech products may increase, as well as reduce the development differences between countries. For this reason, it is crucially important that more resources be directed to producing high technology products, and better concentrating on relevant R&D activities, which has become vitally important for developing countries (Usman, 2017).

In literature, high technology production and export, as well as production of high technology goods, have been attributed to a variety of factors by different researchers for different reasons. These factors may differ according to the economic conditions of a country. Factors which affect a country's high technology exports may yield different results in different countries. From this point of view, the purpose of this study is to examine the determinants of high technology product exports between 2010-2020 for the developing country group BRICS-T using panel regression analysis.