Export Product Quality, Renewable Energy, and Sustainable Production

Book excerpt: Economic development has long been acknowledged for its beneficial effects on human well-being. In the context of economic globalization and vertical specialization, increasing the quality of export products is more critical and necessary to export success and sustainable development. The product's quality is inextricably linked to its manufacture and production, which need various types of energy and raw materials. Meanwhile, the adoption of more environmentally friendly and cleaner energy sources contributes to the achievement of sustainable production. Therefore, product quality may provide a new perspective from which to investigate the systematic relationship between greener and renewable energy sources, sustainable production and environmental regulations, as well as the nature of export competitiveness. Generally, export product quality has referred to the quality of manufactured products within the product lines. Quality refers to the relative price of a country's varieties within their respective product lines. Product sophistication assesses the composition of the aggregate exports. Different varieties of same product as per quality level are being produced by several developing and emerging economies. Within any given product line, quality converges both conditionally and unconditionally to the world's benchmark; increases in institutional quality and human capital are associated with faster quality upgrading. In turn, faster growth in quality is associated with more rapid output growth.