The impact of high-tech products exports on economic growth: The case of Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary

Abstract

Innovative capacity represents the ability of long-term production and commercialization of the flow of innovative technologies and is an essential factor influencing competitiveness in modern economies. When it comes to innovation, research and development, gross domestic product (GDP) is often used as an indicator of investment opportunities at the national level to gain insight into the country's ability to improve innovation and competitiveness. Accordingly, this paper aims to determine whether the export of high-tech products, as one of the results of innovation in the economy, measured by GDP growth, has a positive effect on overall economic growth. For the analysis process to have a comparative character, four countries were included in the empirical research: Serbia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. The international Eurostat database was used as the main source of data, and the period covered by this survey is from 2008 to 2018. A simple linear regression model was applied in the analysis to determine the relationship between the share of hightech products in the country's total exports and GDP per capita. The research results in this paper show that it was not possible to confirm the positive relationship between exports of high-tech products and GDP growth in the case of Serbia, Hungary and Romania, while in the case of Bulgaria, the impact of growth in exports of high-tech products on GDP growth can be confirmed. According to the obtained results, it is most adequate that the issue of innovation, exports and economic growth is not observed exclusively through the development and application of innovations in high-tech industries. We need to look at the broader context in terms of how much innovation can improve exports and the overall business of medium and technologically inferior (less demanding) industries, what innovations these industries need, and how to develop and implement them.