Three essays on the relationship between technological advance, institutional structure, and export performance

Technological advances are shaping production and export structures, and the global economy is increasingly moving towards innovation-driven competitiveness. Consequently, the design and implementation of policies to support structural transformation to enhance competitiveness is of great importance. In today's rapidly changing world, there is a need for an institutional structure that is recognized as one of the key determinants of economic performance and that is efficient, adaptive to changing conditions, and guides the economy in a way that prioritizes technological advances. In this context, this study examines the relationship between technological advance, institutional structure, and export performance through three separate interrelated analyses. The study employs the Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality method, which considers heterogeneity across units for panel data analysis, and autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to determine the existence of long-run cointegration between variables for time series analysis. The panel data analysis includes the European Innovation Scoreboard countries. The time series analysis considers Türkiye and the Turkish defense and aerospace industry, respectively. The results show that, on the one hand, the causal relationship between technological advances and value-added production and competitiveness differs across countries, and, on the other hand, the effect of institutional structure on Türkiye's exports varies depending on technology intensity. Besides, it was found that the institutional structure requirements may also differ depending on the sectoral technology structure. The results from the Turkish defense and aerospace industry exports support this finding. The findings show that the design of industry-specific and innovation-based institutional structures to support the transformation of technological advances into value-added production and competitiveness is important for countries to enhance competitiveness.