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Internal and external factors of competitiveness in the middle-income countries

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2009-11
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Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales
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En el diverso grupo de países de renta media (PRM) se integra un conjunto de economías con un comportamiento exportador de bienes intensivos en tecnología que sobresale respecto al promedio del grupo. Una de las explicaciones de ese resultado estaría en la diferencia de capacidades tecnológicas nacionales, entendiendo éstas como un factor condicionante de la dinámica productiva y comercial que genera ganancias de competitividad. También los efectos que generan los flujos de comercio y de inversión directa (IDE) en estas economías en las que las empresas extranjeras han participado en la industrialización y modernización de su estructura productiva, formarían parte de la explicación. Por ello, en este trabajo analizamos las posibilidades de integración de los PRM en los dinámicos mercados de alta tecnología, a partir de la interacción que se define entre el papel de la IDE y la habilidad de absorción y creación de tecnología. Nuestro trabajo empírico trata de detectar la importancia relativa de factores internos y externos en las mejoras de competitividad internacional de estos países en desarrollo, haciendo uso de un panel de datos en el período comprendido entre 1998 y 2005.
The diverse group of middle-income countries (MIC) is composed by some economies with an active behavior in exports of technology-intensive goods that is strictly better than the group average. One of the factors explaining such a result is the improvement of their national technological capabilities that affects the dynamism of their productive and trade structure generating competitiveness gains. There are grounded reasons to think that this is also a consequence of external effects and the potential impacts that both trade and foreign direct investments (FDI) flows generate in those economies where foreign companies have contributed to the industrialization and modernization of their productive systems. In this paper, we analyze the possibilities of integration of the MIC economies into the dynamic high-tech markets as the interplay between the role of FDI and their ability for the absorption and creation of technology. We will observe based upon empirical analysis with panel data (1998-2005), what is the relative importance of internal and external factors for the improvement of the international competitiveness in these developing economies.
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El estudio en que se basa el presente Working Paper ha recibido la financiación de la Dirección General de Planificación y Evaluación de Políticas de Desarrollo (DGPOLDE) del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y Cooperación (MAEC).
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