Upgrading trend of Machinery in China’s export sophistication

Abstract

Previous studies have found that China is “special” in exporting highly sophisticated goods not comparable with its income level. In this article, we focus on whether China’s machinery is exceptional sophistication. We make use of a unique world machinery production dataset to access China’s upgrading trajectory in the global machinery industry. We use a special way to measure the machinery sophistication in different countries and in different categories. Contrary to existing trade studies, we find no evidence that China’s machinery production activities are more sophisticated than one would expect form its level of development.