The impact of entrepreneurship and export volume on economic complexity: A Turkey analysis

For societies today, the concept of "economic complexity", developed by Richard Hausmann and César Hidalgo (2009), has provided a new perspective on efforts to achieve "sustainable" economic growth and development. This perspective foresees that sustainable development is possible with a complex economic structure based on a production structure that maximizes product diversity and uniqueness rather than increasing the amount of production. However, it is also stated that in the creation of this structure, there is a need for organized units that will combine knowledge and skills scattered across various segments of the society. Therefore, the literature in general considers that entrepreneurship—which is defined as a process that takes place in enterprises (companies) that are mostly institutional organized structures and realizes production with efficient scales by bringing together production factors in a systematic and much higher value-added way—has an important role in achieving high economic complexity. The aim of this study is to analyze primarily the impact of entrepreneurship, and secondarily the impact of export volume, on economic complexity, with a Turkey sample for the period 1995-2018, using simple and multiple linear regression methods and log-differenced time series. The study initially examines the export structure of Turkey considering the economic complexity approach and entrepreneurship concept as well as taking into account the level of production and product technology. The results of further analyses show that: - There is a significant and positive relationship between entrepreneurship and economic complexity, where the establishment of new enterprises (companies) has positive and their closure has negative impacts on economic complexity, - There is no significant (positive or negative) impact of export volume on economic complexity.