Especialização Setorial do Comércio Internacional Condiciona o Impacto da Abertura Comercial Sobre a Renda?

The aim of this article is to evaluate if the sectorial specialization of exports and imports generates nonlinearities between the degree of openness of an economy and its per capita income. In other words, if the composition of exports and imports may change the efficacy of the degree of openness to explain the income differentials among the countries. In order to address this issue, the paper applies a Panel Smooth Transition Model for 110 countries, following the same procedure used by Frankel and Romer (1999)Frankel, J. & Romer, D. (1999). Does trade cause growth? American Economic Review, 89:379–399. to avoid endogeneity problem. Results indicate that in countries where exports are specialized in commodities, openness has less efficiency to influence income than in others where exports are specialized in manufactured goods. On the other hand, this lack of efficacy disappears when imports are strongly specialized in manufactured goods, including capital and intermediate goods.