As You Sow So Shall You Reap: From Capabilities to Opportunities

Long-run growth is about the structural transformation (diversification and upgrading) of the economy, itself a function of the accumulation of capabilities that allows a country to produce new and more unique products. In this paper, we develop an “Index of Opportunities” for 96 non-high-income countries. This Index summarises countries' capabilities to undergo structural transformation, as captured by their export baskets. It has four dimensions—sophistication, diversification, “standardness” and possibilities for exporting new products with revealed comparative advantage. We find that China, India, Poland, Thailand, Mexico and Brazil rank high in the index. This means that these countries have accumulated significant capabilities (as reflected in their export baskets) and hence are well positioned for further economic transformation. At the other extreme, Guinea, Malawi, Benin, Mauritania and Haiti score very poorly. While both groups of countries need to focus policy on the development of capabilities that facilitate structural transformation, the nature and degree of policy support required are very different.