Product space and structural change: a Latin American approach and an application to the Uruguayan case

This article immerses into the debate about the determinants of countries income level convergence, and states that the productive structure of a country is one of the most important of such determinants. A comparative study is performed, testing the potentiality for structural change for Uruguay and nine other countries with a commercial specialization that could be considered similar between them. In order to do this, the article proposes a new interpretation of the Product Space created by Hausmann and other Harvard University researchers, based upon the theoretical framework of the latest works of the ECLALC, which point to technological capabilities as one of the most important determinants of the potentialities of productive structures. The article's main conclusion is that Uruguay shows different potentialities for structural change from those countries with a similar specialization.

Convergence; Structural change; Technological capabilities; Product space