Diversifying the export basket of creative products and accelerating economic growth

Export product diversification accelerates economic growth by helping the nations to escape the commodity dependence trap, reducing the volatility of terms of trade, and stabilizing export revenues. Creative industries are the emerging and evolving industrial sectors that affect the export basket's composition of nations and its growth effects. In this paper, for the first time, we calculated the diversification level of creative products’ export basket using three measures including Theil and GINI inequality indices and Herfindahl–Hirschman concentration index for the top ten exporters including China, the US, France, Italy, the UK, Germany, India, Switzerland, Singapore, and the Netherlands. In addition, we analyzed the effects of diversification of creative products’ export basket on the economic growth of the countries over the period 2002–2020. Our results indicate the diversification level of the creative products’ basket in Switzerland, the US, France, and China decreased over the period, while for Germany and the Netherlands, it increased over recent years. For other countries, the indexes do not show significant fluctuations. By estimating a Barro-type growth regression model and also panel Granger non-causality test, we found creative products’ diversification acts as a pro-growth factor in the countries.