A Comparison of Regional Export Enhancement and Import Substitution Economic Development Strategies

Absent from the economic development literature is a manageable and quantitative analysis that compares regional export enhancement and import substitution strategies. Single sector Leontief and Keynesian models are developed to show how these development strate-gies relate to one another. Both strategies have identical direct effects on an economy, but import substitution increases the indirect effects through additional endogenous purchases, which then increase the output and income multipliers. Assuming identical comparative advantage of both strategies, regional import substitution is found to be at least as good an economic development strategy as regional export enhancement.