Why did some countries catch-up, while others got stuck in the middle? Stages of productive sophistication and smart industrial policies

Autor(es)

Hartmann, Dominik ^{[1, 2, 3]} ; Zagato, Ligia ^[4] ; Gala, Paulo ^[5] ; Pinheiro, Flavio L. ^[6]

Afiliação do(s) autor(es)

^[1] Univ Fed Santa Catarina, Dept Econ & Int Relat, R Engn Agron Andrei Cristian Ferreira S-N, BR-88040900 Florianopolis, SC - Brazil

^[2] Univ Sao Paulo, Sao Carlos Sch Engn, Dept Prod Engn, Sao Paulo, SP - Brazil

^[3] Univ Hohenheim, Dept Innovat Econ, Stuttgart - Germany

^[4] Univ London, Sch Oriental & African Studies SOAS, 10 Thornhaugh St, London WC1H 0XG - England

^[5] Fundacao Getulio Vargas, EESP FGV, Escola Econ Sao Paulo, Rua Itapeva 474, BR-01313902 Sao Paulo, SP - Brazil

^[6] Univ Nova Lisboa, Nova Informat Management Sch NOVA IMS, PT Campus Campolide, P-1070312 Lisbon - Portugal

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: STRUCTURAL CHANGE AND ECONOMIC DYNAMICS; v. 58, p. 1-13, SEP 2021.
• Citações Web of Science: 0

Resumo

Development studies on the middle-income trap have highlighted the challenges for developing economies to transform their productive systems from simple towards high value-added activities. Here, we use trade data of 116 countries to quantify the stages of productive sophistication and reveal the crit-ical phase that countries encounter at intermediate levels of economic sophistication. Our results reveal that only five countries (i.e. Ireland, Israel, Hungary, Singapore, and South Korea) overcame the gravitation towards simple products and fully transformed their economies towards complex products between 1970 and 2010. They successfully made use of windows of opportunities in the digital and electronics sectors through smart industrial policies that promoted endogenous skills and access to international knowledge sources. In contrast, countries like Brazil or South Africa still struggle with the gravitation towards simple economic activities, social fragmentation, and a lack of coherent industrial policies. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 17/19842-2 - Crescimento inteligente, sustentável e inclusivo no Brasil
• Beneficiário: Daisy Aparecida do Nascimento Rebelatto
• Modalidade de apoio: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Pesquisador Visitante - Internacional