TECHNOLOGICAL OPPORTUNITIES IN NATURAL RESOURCES RELATED INDUSTRIES IN LATIN AMERICA. OLD PRESUMPTIONS, NEW EVIDENCE

ANABEL MARIN; SERGIO PETRALIA; CLAUDIO BRAVO ORTEGA

Conferencia; 6th Conference on Micro Evidence on Innovation in Developing Economies (MEIDE); 2012

United Nations University

The pattern of specialisation of Latin American countries is strongly biased towards the exploitation of natural resources (NRs) and related industries (i.e. minerals, agriculture, grain mill products, pulp and paper, wine, etc.). These activities are typically regarded as problematic for development because, among other things, they are considered to have low technological dynamism. Within the innovation literature, differences in the technological intensity and dynamism of industries are strongly associated with differences in technological opportunities (TOs) across industries (or the opportunities for introducing new products or process in association with investments in innovation). In this paper, using Innovation Survey data for Argentina, Brazil and Chile, we investigate technological opportunities in NRs and related industries in these three countries. Our empirical analysis does not support the well spread general idea that NRS and related industries have and create less technological opportunities, and therefore, are less dynamic, than other type of industries. Quite the opposite, we find in a number of cases that the association with NRs has a positive impact on technological opportunities.