Demand-Led Growth Decomposition and Trade Structures: Towards a Spectrum of Export-Led Models

This article links different approaches to analyzing demand and growth regimes with the structure of international trade. We apply the national income and financial accounting as well as the Sraffian supermultiplier demand-led growth decomposition approaches to analyze the growth regimes of two advanced economies (Germany and Spain) and five emerging economies (Argentina, Brazil, India, South Africa and Turkey) over the period 2000–2019. Our analysis shows that exports have become an increasingly important autonomous source of growth in most countries. However, structural changes in exports are uneven and reveal growing polarization. We therefore identify a spectrum of export-led regimes and propose a classification typology based on technological content, economic complexity rankings, and the dominance of different autonomous demand components. The findings highlight the limitations of treating export-led growth as a homogeneous model or regime and underscore the importance of considering the country-specific structural characteristics that shape different export-led regimes.