Export instability and concentration in the less developed countries: A cross-sectional analysis

A model to explain export instability in the less developed countries is formulated and tested on a sample of 48 less developed countries between 1957 and 1969. The explanatory variables suggested are commodity and geographic concentration and the importance of oil in the export sector. These variable are defined in a variety of ways to determine the sensitivity of the results to variable definitions. The results suggest that all three explanatory variables are significant in explaining export instability, although a considerable proportion of the variance in export instability remained unexplained.