Export Product Scope of Russian Firms and Proximity to Local Comparative Advantages

This paper explores the relationship between the structure of regional comparative advantages and the dynamics of the export product scope of Russian manufacturing enterprises. For this purpose, indices of revealed technological proximity of industries are calculated on the basis of data on types of economic activities and the export product scope of Russian enterprises. The methodology for calculating these indicators is based on the assumption that technologically closer types of activities are, to a certain degree, more often co-produced and co-exported within the boundaries of individual enterprises. This measure of technological proximity has several advantages over the traditionally used indicators. Estimates show that the constructed indices reflect different aspects of technological proximity of industries and can be considered as composite indicators. Technological proximity measures are used to calculate the index of product proximity to the structure of export comparative advantages of Russian regions. This index is statistically related to the probability of a product being included in the export product scope of a Russian exporter, to the probability of the product being excluded from the export product scope and, as a result, to the value and dynamics of exports of this product by the regional enterprises. These findings indicate that there is a relationship between the current structure of the regional comparative advantage and the direction in which the range of exports of Russian enterprises located in this region evolves. The results of the study can be used for designing economic policy measures aimed at diversification of production and export of the Russian regions, in particular on the basis of existing producers and exporters, as well as applied by the firms themselves to detect the most promising directions of activity expansion taking into account the production structure of the region which the given firm is located at.