Sophistication Of Exports (Expy) Export

Estimating the level of technological sophistication embodied in a country’s export portfolio gives an indication of that country’s economic development. PRODY is an outcome-based measure of sophistication: if a product is mostly produced by rich countries, then it is revealed to be a “rich,” or sophisticated, product. PRODY is calculated as a weighted average of per capita GDP of countries producing that product, with weights derived from revealed comparative advantage. The country’s expected GDP per capita, EXPY, is given by summing all the PRODY values for the products exported by the country, each weighted by the product’s share in total exports.