IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unt/wpmpdd/wp-12-02.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Building Productive Capacities: Challenges and Opportunities for Least Developed Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Clovis Freire

    (Macroeconomic Policy and Financing for Development Division, ESCAP)

Abstract

Building productive capacities is a top priority for least developed countries to promote development and graduate from the status of least developed country. This paper discusses the challenges and the opportunities for these countries to build their productive capacities. It argues that the main challenge is to manage the long-term effects of the increase in the terms of trade of commodities and reduction of terms of trade of manufactures, which threaten their growth trajectory. The paper presents a method to identify the opportunities for diversification that promotes the generation and acquisition of productive capacities. It also presents a list of potential new products and export markets that could be targeted by government and private sector for achieving higher long-term gains.

Suggested Citation

  • Clovis Freire, 2012. "Building Productive Capacities: Challenges and Opportunities for Least Developed Countries," MPDD Working Paper Series WP/12/02, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
    • Handle: RePEc:unt:wpmpdd:wp/12/02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.unescap.org/pdd/publications/workingpaper/wp-12-02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. Ricardo Hausmann & Bailey Klinger, 2007. "The Structure of the Product Space and the Evolution of Comparative Advantage," CID Working Papers 146, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    4. Hausmann, Ricardo & Hidalgo, Cesar A., 2010. "Country Diversification, Product Ubiquity, and Economic Divergence," Working Paper Series rwp10-045, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    5. Peter K. Schott, 2004. "Across-Product Versus Within-Product Specialization in International Trade," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 647-678.
    6. Felipe, Jesus & Kumar, Utsav & Abdon, Arnelyn & Bacate, Marife, 2012. "Product complexity and economic development," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 36-68.
    7. Williamson, Jeffrey G., 2011. "Trade and Poverty: When the Third World Fell Behind," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262015158, December.
    8. Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2011. "Trade and Poverty: When the Third World Fell Behind," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262015153, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Dany Bahar & Hillel Rapoport & Riccardo Turati, 2019. "Does Birthplace Diversity Affect Economic Complexity? Cross-Country Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 7950, CESifo.
    2. Cyrielle Gaglio, 2015. "Measuring Country Competitiveness: A Survey of Exporting-based Indexes," GREDEG Working Papers 2015-42, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    3. Eum, Wonsub & Lee, Jeong-Dong, 2019. "Role of production in fostering innovation," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 84, pages 1-10.
    4. Wonsub Eum & Jeong‐Dong Lee, 2022. "Alternative paths of diversification for developing countries," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 2336-2355, November.
    5. Pier-Paolo Saviotti & Andreas Pyka¤ & Bogang Jun, 2020. "Diversification, structural change, and economic development," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(5), pages 1301-1335, November.
    6. Sekkat, Khalid, 2016. "Exchange rate misalignment and export diversification in developing countries," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 1-14.
    7. Clovis Freire, 2011. "Productive Capacities in Asia and the Pacific," MPDD Working Paper Series WP/11/17, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
    8. Juthathip Jongwanich, 2020. "Export diversification, margins and economic growth at industrial level: Evidence from Thailand," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(10), pages 2674-2722, October.
    9. 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).
    10. Poncet, Sandra & Starosta de Waldemar, Felipe, 2013. "Export Upgrading and Growth: The Prerequisite of Domestic Embeddedness," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 104-118.
    11. Ding Nan & Pomi Shahbaz & Shamsheer ul Haq & Muhammad Nadeem & Muhammad Imran, 2023. "The Economies’ Ability to Produce Diversified and Complex Goods to Meet the Global Competition: Role of Gross Value Chain, Institutional Quality, and Human Capital," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-17, April.
    12. Hartmann, Dominik & Guevara, Miguel R. & Jara-Figueroa, Cristian & Aristarán, Manuel & Hidalgo, César A., 2017. "Linking Economic Complexity, Institutions, and Income Inequality," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 75-93.
    13. Andreas Reinstaller & Werner Hölzl & Johannes Kutsam & Christian Schmid, 2013. "The Development of Productive Structures of EU Member Countries and Their International Competitiveness," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 46823, April.
    14. Asier Minondo, 2011. "Does comparative advantage explain countries’ diversification level?," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 147(3), pages 507-526, September.
    15. Hidalgo, César A., 2023. "The policy implications of economic complexity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(9).
    16. Stefan Schiman & Andreas Reinstaller, 2015. "Analyse der Terms-of-Trade Österreichs," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 60648, Juni.
    17. Désiré Avom & Brice Kamguia & Joseph Pasky Ngameni, 2021. "Does volatility hinder economic complexity?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 41(3), pages 1187-1202.
    18. Sandra Poncet & Felipe Starosta, 2013. "Export upgrading and growth in China: the prerequisite of domestic embeddedness," PSE - G-MOND WORKING PAPERS halshs-00960684, HAL.
    19. Freire Junior, Clovis, 2017. "Promoting structural transformation: Strategic diversification vs laissez-faire approach," MERIT Working Papers 2017-037, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    20. Michael Klien & Michael Böheim & Matthias Firgo & Andreas Reinstaller & Peter Reschenhofer & Yvonne Wolfmayr, 2021. "Stärkung der Unabhängigkeit des Wirtschaftsstandortes Österreich bei kritischen Produkten," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 67234, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Productive Capacity; Least Developed Countries; Economic Development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries

    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:unt:wpmpdd:wp/12/02. 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: Macroeconomic Policy and Development Division, ESCAP (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/escapth.html .

    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.