Dinámica de la especialización en América Latina: fragmentación de la producción y sofisticación de las exportaciones[Dynamic of specialization in Latin America: production fragmentation and export sophistication]

The process of globalization has produced a strong transformation of the international economy in recent decades, to increase the spectrum of economic activity that is likely to be traded between countries. Technological change and other factors that affect the costs of trade have led to new grounds for specialization. This wave is characterized by the fragmentation of production in many stages and has been extended to a diverse set of activities. Thus we have developed so-called global chains of value (CGV), combining the participation of large number of suppliers around the world. In particular this phenomenon is expressed in the production of modern manufactures that incorporate a high level of technical progress. Latin America, unlike other regions in development, has not been a leading participant of this dynamic; the basket of exported products is characterized by a low level of sophistication. This article presents a characterization of the inclusion in that process of some selected countries in the region (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay), compared with some developed countries (Germany, Belgium, Korea of the South, United States and Japan) and the so-called BRICS. The results show that in the region have begun to export with comparative advantage not previously exported, exported episodically or exported without revealed comparative advantages. However, the performance of selected Latin American countries has been uneven in terms of proportion of intermediates in this basket and sophistication of the same.