IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2110.09673.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bridging the short-term and long-term dynamics of economic structural change

Author

Listed:
  • James McNerney
  • Yang Li
  • Andres Gomez-Lievano
  • Frank Neffke

Abstract

Economic transformation -- change in what an economy produces -- is foundational to development and rising standards of living. Our understanding of this process has been propelled recently by two branches of work in the field of economic complexity, one studying how economies diversify, the other how the complexity of an economy is expressed in the makeup of its output. However, the connection between these branches is not well understood, nor how they relate to a classic understanding of structural transformation. Here, we present a simple dynamical modeling framework that unifies these areas of work, based on the widespread observation that economies diversify preferentially into activities that are related to ones they do already. We show how stylized facts of long-run structural change, as well as complexity metrics, can both emerge naturally from this one observation. However, complexity metrics take on new meanings, as descriptions of the long-term changes an economy experiences rather than measures of complexity per se. This suggests relatedness and complexity metrics are connected, in a hitherto overlooked way: Both describe structural change, on different time scales. Whereas relatedness probes transformation on short time scales, complexity metrics capture long-term change.

Suggested Citation

  • James McNerney & Yang Li & Andres Gomez-Lievano & Frank Neffke, 2021. "Bridging the short-term and long-term dynamics of economic structural change," Papers 2110.09673, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2023.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2110.09673
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2110.09673
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cesar A. Hidalgo & Ricardo Hausmann, 2009. "The Building Blocks of Economic Complexity," Papers 0909.3890, arXiv.org.
    2. Jean Imbs & Romain Wacziarg, 2003. "Stages of Diversification," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 63-86, March.
    3. Gianluca Teza & Michele Caraglio & Attilio L. Stella, 2021. "Entropic measure unveils country competitiveness and product specialization in the World trade web," Papers 2106.01936, arXiv.org.
    4. Alex Hoen & Jan Oosterhaven, 2006. "On the measurement of comparative advantage," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 40(3), pages 677-691, August.
    5. Matthieu Cristelli & Andrea Gabrielli & Andrea Tacchella & Guido Caldarelli & Luciano Pietronero, 2013. "Measuring the Intangibles: A Metrics for the Economic Complexity of Countries and Products," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(8), pages 1-20, August.
    6. Hausmann, Ricardo & Hidalgo, Cesar, 2014. "The Atlas of Economic Complexity: Mapping Paths to Prosperity," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262525429, April.
    7. Carla Sciarra & Guido Chiarotti & Luca Ridolfi & Francesco Laio, 2020. "Reconciling contrasting views on economic complexity," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-10, December.
    8. Andres Gomez-Lievano & Oscar Patterson-Lomba, 2018. "Estimating the drivers of urban economic complexity and their connection to economic performance," Papers 1812.02842, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2021.
    9. C. A. Hidalgo & B. Klinger & A. -L. Barabasi & R. Hausmann, 2007. "The Product Space Conditions the Development of Nations," Papers 0708.2090, arXiv.org.
    10. Guido Caldarelli & Matthieu Cristelli & Andrea Gabrielli & Luciano Pietronero & Antonio Scala & Andrea Tacchella, 2012. "A Network Analysis of Countries’ Export Flows: Firm Grounds for the Building Blocks of the Economy," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(10), pages 1-11, October.
    11. Cesar A. Hidalgo, 2009. "The Dynamics of Economic Complexity and the Product Space over a 42 year period," CID Working Papers 189, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    12. Zoltán Elekes & Ron Boschma & Balázs Lengyel, 2019. "Foreign-owned firms as agents of structural change in regions," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(11), pages 1603-1613, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Koen Frenken & Frank Neffke, 2024. "Economic Geography and Complexity Theory," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2431, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Oct 2024.
    2. Tacchella, Andrea & Zaccaria, Andrea & Miccheli, Marco & Pietronero, Luciano, 2023. "Relatedness in the era of machine learning," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    3. Bernardo Caldarola & Dario Mazzilli & Aurelio Patelli & Angelica Sbardella, 2024. "Structural Change, Employment, and Inequality in Europe: an Economic Complexity Approach," Papers 2410.07906, arXiv.org.
    4. Hidalgo, César A., 2023. "The policy implications of economic complexity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(9).
    5. Li, Yang & Neffke, Frank M.H., 2024. "Evaluating the principle of relatedness: Estimation, drivers and implications for policy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(3).
    6. Carlo Bottai & Jacopo Di Iorio & Martina Iori, 2024. "Reinterpreting Economic Complexity: A co-clustering approach," Papers 2406.16199, arXiv.org.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Balland, Pierre-Alexandre & Broekel, Tom & Diodato, Dario & Giuliani, Elisa & Hausmann, Ricardo & O'Clery, Neave & Rigby, David, 2022. "Reprint of The new paradigm of economic complexity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(8).
    2. Sudeshna Ghosh & Buhari Doğan & Muhlis Can & Muhammad Ibrahim Shah & Nicholas Apergis, 2023. "Does economic structure matter for income inequality?," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 2507-2527, June.
    3. Hidalgo, César A., 2023. "The policy implications of economic complexity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(9).
    4. Parcu, Pier Luigi & Innocenti, Niccolò & Carrozza, Chiara, 2022. "Ubiquitous technologies and 5G development. Who is leading the race?," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(4).
    5. Bernardo Caldarola & Dario Mazzilli & Lorenzo Napolitano & Aurelio Patelli & Angelica Sbardella, 2023. "Economic complexity and the sustainability transition: A review of data, methods, and literature," Papers 2308.07172, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2024.
    6. Balland, Pierre-Alexandre & Broekel, Tom & Diodato, Dario & Giuliani, Elisa & Hausmann, Ricardo & O'Clery, Neave & Rigby, David, 2022. "The new paradigm of economic complexity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(3).
    7. Viktor Stojkoski & Zoran Utkovski & Ljupco Kocarev, 2016. "The Impact of Services on Economic Complexity: Service Sophistication as Route for Economic Growth," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-29, August.
    8. Campi, Mercedes & Dueñas, Marco & Fagiolo, Giorgio, 2021. "Specialization in food production affects global food security and food systems sustainability," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    9. Mercedes Campi & Marco Duenas & Giorgio Fagiolo, 2019. "How do countries specialize in food production? A complex-network analysis of the global agricultural product space," LEM Papers Series 2019/37, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    10. Yibo Qiao & Andrea Ascani & Andrea Morrison, 2024. "External linkages and regional diversification in China: The role of foreign multinational enterprises," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(4), pages 1077-1101, June.
    11. Penny Mealy & Diane Coyle, 2022. "To them that hath: economic complexity and local industrial strategy in the UK," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(2), pages 358-377, April.
    12. Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm, 2020. "Aid for Trade flows and Poverty Reduction in Recipient-Countries," EconStor Preprints 213807, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    13. Andrea Zaccaria & Matthieu Cristelli & Andrea Tacchella & Luciano Pietronero, 2014. "How the Taxonomy of Products Drives the Economic Development of Countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(12), pages 1-17, December.
    14. Saurabh Mishra & Robert Koopman & Giuditta De-Prato & Anand Rao & Israel Osorio-Rodarte & Julie Kim & Nikola Spatafora & Keith Strier & Andrea Zaccaria, 2021. "AI Specialization for Pathways of Economic Diversification," Papers 2103.11042, arXiv.org.
    15. Hausmann, Ricardo & Stock, Daniel P. & Yıldırım, Muhammed A., 2022. "Implied comparative advantage," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(8).
    16. Hardik Rajpal & Omar A Guerrero, 2023. "Synergistic Small Worlds that Drive Technological Sophistication," Papers 2301.04579, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2023.
    17. Mercedes Campi & Marco Duenas & Giorgio Fagiolo, 2020. "Specialization in food production, global food security and sustainability," LEM Papers Series 2020/05, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    18. Buhari Doğan & Oana M. Driha & Daniel Balsalobre Lorente & Umer Shahzad, 2021. "The mitigating effects of economic complexity and renewable energy on carbon emissions in developed countries," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 1-12, January.
    19. Castañeda, Gonzalo & Pietronero, Luciano & Romero-Padilla, Juan & Zaccaria, Andrea, 2022. "The complex dynamic of growth: Fitness and the different patterns of economic activity in the medium and long terms," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 231-246.
    20. Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm, 2021. "Do Unilateral Trade Preferences Help Reduce Poverty in Beneficiary Countries?," EconStor Preprints 247346, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2110.09673. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.