The Role of Export Diversification on the Relationship between Trade Openness and Volatility of Economic Growth in Developing Countries (1980-2015)

In recent years, extensive studies have been done on how trade openness affects economic growth; however, a limited number of studies focus on the volatility of economic growth. A group of these studies have identified openness as a factor in achieving more stable economic growth, and also a group of researches have considered it as a factor in creating instability in the economy, therefore, the empirical studies have ambiguous. An important reason for this ambiguity, can be the structure of trade and exports of countries. The export concentration will lead to a disruption of a large part of the country's production and foreign revenues, when there is an export shock. Therefore, in this article, in addition to studying the effect of trade openness on economic growth volatility, the role of export diversification in this connection is examined. To this end, data from the 18 selected developing countries have been used during the years 1980- 2015 in two panel data models. The first model, regardless of the diversification of exports, estimates this relationship, and the second model, enters the export diversification by multiplying it by openness. The results of the research indicate that the greater degree of trade openness, due to the transfer of external shocks to the economy, increases economic growth instability, but the diversification of exports can help to reduce the volatility of economic growth caused by trade.