Understanding liberalization episodes through the product space approach

• Autor(a) principal: Cardomingo, Matias Rebello
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Texto Completo: https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/12/12138/tde-12012021-164001/
• topic: Economia da complexidade; Economic complexity; Liberalization reforms; Política comercial e desenvolvimento; Reformas de liberalização; Trade policy and development

The product space, along with the Economic Complexity measures, provides a data driven approach aimed to renewal the strands of though that posed the sectoral composition of output at the center of their concerns on development. Such view, however, has long been opposed by other branches of research focused mainly on the relevance of sound market institutions, for which openness to trade has had a crucial role. Therefore, this study aimed at analysing how the impacts of policy measures oriented by this latter perspective could be understood by the product space methodology. In Chapter 1 three empirical exercises are performed using cross-country analysis as to identify how trade liberalization policies affected complexity and product space measures. Results do not show a robust effect of this policy orientation, though. Some heterogeneous effects between levels of income do seem to be relevant to understand the interaction between liberal policies and the productive structure, but it was not robust for different specifications. As for Chapter 2, it is proposed a dataset that connects the trade series constructed by the Observatory of Economic Complexity with the UN Trade Analysis Information System as to understand how tariffs impact capabilities as measured by the product space. The empirical exercise focus on the Brazilian liberalization process in the 1990s. Results suggests that, although Brazil raised its diversity of exports right after its tariff cut in the early 1990s, it was not able to engage in industries that had different capabilities from the ones it already presented comparative advantage.