The impact of export promotion programs on the technological intensity of export products: The case of Turkey

Introduction Exports of high-tech products have gained considerable importance along with globalization and increasing competition in the world economy. Countries have become increasingly in need of exports of high-tech products in order to be competitive and to increase their market shares as well as to protect their current status in markets. In order to overcome the squeeze experienced in world trade, companies and countries increased their research and development expenses to innovate. This process, which manifests itself in producing the current product at a lower cost and/or creating a new product, changed the shares of countries in world trade and hence has become an important part of foreign trade. There is a significant number of studies in the empirical literature indicating that research and development expenses improve innovation which eventually lead to increase in the share of high-tech products in total exports of countries. Since the high-tech product means high value added product at the same time, the increase in exports of high-tech products will also facilitate the economic growth. Thus, it is also important nowadays that countries take the issue of the technology concentration into account and apply it in the scope of their export support programs. It should be taken into consideration by public authorities who design support policies for exporting that the aim of increasing export performance, competitiveness, and market share in foreign trade can be reached through exporting of high-tech products. This study investigates the impact of export….