The Change of Export Variety and Economic Performance:Evidences from the E7 Countries

Using the modified Feenstra's method,this paper measures the general export variety and export varieties of industries with different technology level for E7 countries relative to the United States from 1993 to 2009.China's export variety shows a slightly rising trend with some fluctuations,while Russia's export variety goes on a significantly downward trend and the export varieties of other five countries among E7 group exhibit an upward trend during the sample period.After discussing the mechanism through which export variety affects economic growth,this paper implements the empirical analysis.The results support the significantly positive effect of export variety on economic growth,and export variety of middle and low-technology industry shows a larger effect on economic growth than export variety of high-technology industries.There exists the complementarity between the export variety and technology spillovers of export.