Page "International economics" Paragraph 13

Other researchers have found research and development expenditure, patents issued, and the availability of skilled labor, to be indicators of the technological leadership that enables some countries to produce a flow of such technological innovations and have found that technology leaders tend to export hi-tech products to others and receive imports of more standard products from them.

Another econometric study also established a correlation between country size and the share of exports made up of goods in the production of which there are scale economies.

It is further suggested in that study that internationally traded goods fall into three categories, each with a different type of comparative advantage: