Digital Trade Restrictions and High-Technology Export Performance: Panel Fixed Effects Evidence from Emerging Economies

As the digital economy transforms global trade, cross-border data flows and digital service inputs have become critical for technology-intensive manufacturing. This study examines the relationship between digital trade restrictiveness and high-technology export performance across 20 emerging economies from 2014 to 2024. Employing a country fixed-effects estimator and a set of robustness specifications addressing alternative error structures and common temporal shocks, the analysis investigates whether the OECD Digital Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (Digital STRI) is systematically associated with the share of high-technology exports in manufactured exports. The baseline country fixed-effects estimate is negative and statistically significant, indicating that higher levels of Digital STRI are associated with lower high-technology export shares. Across alternative covariance estimators and Two-Way Fixed Effects specifications, the estimated coefficient remains negative and similar in magnitude, although its statistical precision varies across inference procedures. Economic maturity, proxied by GDP per capita, is positively and significantly associated with the high-technology export share in the baseline specification, whereas foreign direct investment (FDI), manufacturing value added (MVA), and trade openness are statistically insignificant in that specification. The results are interpreted as conditional associations rather than causal effects and highlight the potential relevance of open and interoperable digital regulatory environments for technology-intensive export performance.