International trade has been studied for decades; still, some debates remain, and new questions emerge as the structure and growth drivers of the (global) economy change. While it has been settled that price factors no longer explain international trade flows, there seems no consensus about the importance of other factors. Using data for 28 EU countries over the period 1995-2017, we examine various determinants of different types of manufactures’ exports. We discover two types of impact on export performance: a direct impact on overall exports and an indirect, transformational impact (from less to more technologically advanced exports). Our results thus explain differences in previous findings related to the importance of technological factors for exports. We show that patenting has the direct positive impact on exports, while R&D has the positive transformational impact. In general, most technological and institutional factors have either the direct or indirect impact on exports.

国际贸易已经研究了数十年。但是，仍然存在一些争论，随着（全球）经济的结构和增长驱动力的变化，出现了新的问题。虽然已经确定价格因素不再能解释国际贸易流量，但似乎对其他因素的重要性尚未达成共识。使用1995年至2017年期间28个欧盟国家的数据，我们研究了不同类型制成品出口的各种决定因素。我们发现对出口绩效的影响有两种类型：对整体出口的直接影响和间接的，转型性的影响（从较少到技术更先进的出口）。因此，我们的结果解释了先前发现中与技术因素对出口的重要性相关的差异。我们发现，专利对出口具有直接的积极影响，而R＆D具有积极的变革影响。一般而言，大多数技术和体制因素都对出口产生直接或间接的影响。