Quality of Imports Relative to Exports, and the Transmission of Sustained Growth through the Terms of Trade

This paper shows that an economy can import sustained growth, in spite of not possessing mechanisms to absorb foreign knowledge. To do that, it develops a two-country model of exogenous growth with investment-specific technological change. In autarky, one country sustainably grows while the other economy remains stagnant. In the trade situation, the quality-adjusted terms of trade become increasingly favourable to the second economy, which results in the transmission of growth. The continuous improvement in the quality of imported capital goods relative to exported consumption goods is the reason why this occurs. Moreover, this mechanism leads to convergence in per capita income if trade involves incomplete specialisation.