Developing countries are placing increased emphasis on diversifying their export basket and 'adding more value', yet these policies are often haphazardly designed with little connection to economic theory & evidence. By analyzing 40 years of global export data with both traditional and network methods, we can find strong patterns of relationships between products. This 'product space' strongly shapes the opportunity set for countries in their efforts to diversify output and move to higher value activities, and combined with recent experiences in productive development policies suggests how governments can most effectively achieve export diversification.

Bailey Klinger, BBA SFU 2002, PhD Harvard 2008, is co-founder, Executive Chairman & Chief Scientist of EFL Global. Bailey’s research has focused on entrepreneurship, innovation, and productive transformation in developing countries, and has been published in leading Journals such as Science. He serves as Senior Advisor to the Minister of Production in Peru, and on various boards. He has a Masters in Public Administration in International Development and PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.