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Empirical confirmation of creative destruction from world trade data

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  • Peter Klimek
  • Ricardo Hausmann

    (Center for International Development at Harvard University)

  • Stefan Thurner

Abstract

We show that world trade network datasets contain empirical evidence that the dynamics of innovation in the world economy follows indeed the concept of creative destruction, as proposed by J.A. Schumpeter more than half a century ago. National economies can be viewed as complex, evolving systems, driven by a stream of appearance and disappearance of goods and services. Products appear in bursts of creative cascades. We find that products systematically tend to co-appear, and that product appearances lead to massive disappearance events of existing products in the following years. The opposite – disappearances followed by periods of appearances – is not observed. This is an empirical validation of the dominance of cascading competitive replacement events on the scale of national economies, i.e. creative destruction. We find a tendency that more complex products drive out less complex ones, i.e. progress has a direction. Finally we show that the growth trajectory of a country’s product output diversity can be understood by a recently proposed evolutionary model of Schumpeterian economic dynamics

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Klimek & Ricardo Hausmann & Stefan Thurner, 2012. "Empirical confirmation of creative destruction from world trade data," CID Working Papers 238, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
  • Handle: RePEc:cid:wpfacu:238
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    7. Orazio Angelini & Matthieu Cristelli & Andrea Zaccaria & Luciano Pietronero, 2017. "The complex dynamics of products and its asymptotic properties," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(5), pages 1-20, May.
    8. Michael Klien & Michael Böheim & Matthias Firgo & Andreas Reinstaller & Peter Reschenhofer & Yvonne Wolfmayr, 2021. "Stärkung der Unabhängigkeit des Wirtschaftsstandortes Österreich bei kritischen Produkten," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 67234, January.
    9. Salvador Pueyo, 2014. "Ecological Econophysics for Degrowth," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(6), pages 1-53, May.
    10. Klimek, Peter & Poledna, Sebastian & Doyne Farmer, J. & Thurner, Stefan, 2015. "To bail-out or to bail-in? Answers from an agent-based model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 144-154.
    11. Hötte, Kerstin, 2020. "How to accelerate green technology diffusion? Directed technological change in the presence of coevolving absorptive capacity," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    12. Freire Junior, Clovis, 2017. "Economic diversification: Explaining the pattern of diversification in the global economy and its implications for fostering diversification in poorer countries," MERIT Working Papers 2017-033, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    13. Andreas Reinstaller & Elisabeth Christen & Harald Oberhofer & Peter Reschenhofer, 2016. "Eine Analyse der Wettbewerbsfähigkeit Österreichs im bilateralen Handel mit den USA (TTIP)," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 58723, January.
    14. Eduardo Lora, 2016. "The Path to Labor Formality: Urban Agglomeration and the Emergence of Complex Industries," CID Working Papers 78, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    15. Castañeda, Gonzalo & Pietronero, Luciano & Romero-Padilla, Juan & Zaccaria, Andrea, 2022. "The complex dynamic of growth: Fitness and the different patterns of economic activity in the medium and long terms," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 231-246.
    16. Kemp-Benedict, Eric, 2014. "An interpretation and critique of the Method of Reflections," MPRA Paper 60705, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Friesenbichler, Klaus S. & Kügler, Agnes, 2022. "Servitization across countries and sectors: Evidence from world input-output data," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 46(3).
    18. Orazio Angelini & Matthieu Cristelli & Andrea Zaccaria & Luciano Pietronero, 2016. "The complex dynamics of products and its asymptotic properties," Papers 1610.00274, arXiv.org, revised May 2017.
    19. Klaus Friesenbichler & Ina Meyer, 2022. "Sectoral and Environmentally Friendly Growth Potential in Uganda," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 68032, January.
    20. Werner Hölzl, 2021. "Structural Change towards Services," WIFO Working Papers 631, WIFO.
    21. Shana M. Sundstrom & Craig R. Allen & David G. Angeler, 2020. "Scaling and discontinuities in the global economy," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 319-345, April.
    22. Viviana Viña-Cervantes & Michele Coscia & Renaud Lambiotte, 2018. "The struggle for existence in the world market ecosystem," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(10), pages 1-20, October.

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    Keywords

    Creative Destruction; Trade Datasets;

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