IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/jicepx/v16y2025i01ns1793993325500012.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Productive Capacities, Economic Growth and Economic Growth Volatility in Developing Countries: Does Structural Economic Vulnerability Matter?

Author

Listed:
  • Sena Kimm Gnangnon

    (Development Division, World Trade Organization, Rue de Lausanne 154, CH-1211 Geneva 21, Switzerland)

Abstract

Recent years’ global shocks (e.g., the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic) and environmental shocks — such as natural disasters — have heightened the vulnerability of developing countries to future shocks, and can compromise their development prospects. International institutions and researchers have advocated that the strengthening of productive capacities in these countries would help enhance the resilience of their economies to shocks, and promote sustainable development. This paper has examined the effect of productive capacities on economic growth and economic growth volatility in developing countries, in particular when they face a high level of structural economic vulnerability. The analysis covers 117 developing countries over the period of 2000–2018. It shows that productive capacities not only promote economic growth, but also reduce economic growth volatility. On the other hand, structural economic vulnerability reduces economic growth (in particular when it exceeds a certain level), and induces greater volatility of economic growth. Interestingly, productive capacities promote economic growth and reduce economic growth volatility in countries that face a high degree of structural economic vulnerability. These findings support the recommendation by international institutions and researchers that if they were to enhance the resilience of their economies to shocks, and promote sustainable economic growth, developing countries (in particular the poorest ones) should strengthen their productive capacities.

Suggested Citation

  • Sena Kimm Gnangnon, 2025. "Productive Capacities, Economic Growth and Economic Growth Volatility in Developing Countries: Does Structural Economic Vulnerability Matter?," Journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy (JICEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 16(01), pages 1-66, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:wsi:jicepx:v:16:y:2025:i:01:n:s1793993325500012
    DOI: 10.1142/S1793993325500012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S1793993325500012
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1142/S1793993325500012?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Productive capacities; economic growth; economic growth volatility; structural economic vulnerability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wsi:jicepx:v:16:y:2025:i:01:n:s1793993325500012. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.worldscinet.com/jicep/jicep.shtml .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.