Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/0909.3890.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Building Blocks of Economic Complexity

Author

Listed:
  • Cesar A. Hidalgo
  • Ricardo Hausmann
Abstract
For Adam Smith, wealth was related to the division of labor. As people and firms specialize in different activities, economic efficiency increases, suggesting that development is associated with an increase in the number of individual activities and with the complexity that emerges from the interactions between them. Here we develop a view of economic growth and development that gives a central role to the complexity of a country's economy by interpreting trade data as a bipartite network in which countries are connected to the products they export, and show that it is possible to quantify the complexity of a country's economy by characterizing the structure of this network. Furthermore, we show that the measures of complexity we derive are correlated with a country's level of income, and that deviations from this relationship are predictive of future growth. This suggests that countries tend to converge to the level of income dictated by the complexity of their productive structures, indicating that development efforts should focus on generating the conditions that would allow complexity to emerge in order to generate sustained growth and prosperity.

Suggested Citation

  • Cesar A. Hidalgo & Ricardo Hausmann, 2009. "The Building Blocks of Economic Complexity," Papers 0909.3890, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:0909.3890
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0909.3890
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1991. "Quality Ladders in the Theory of Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(1), pages 43-61.
    2. Robert C. Feenstra & Robert E. Lipsey & Haiyan Deng & Alyson C. Ma & Hengyong Mo, 2005. "World Trade Flows: 1962-2000," NBER Working Papers 11040, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Lant Pritchett, 1997. "Divergence, Big Time," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 3-17, Summer.
    4. Robert J. Barro & Paul Romer, 1993. "Economic Growth (1992)," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number barr93-1.
    5. C. A. Hidalgo & B. Klinger & A. -L. Barabasi & R. Hausmann, 2007. "The Product Space Conditions the Development of Nations," Papers 0708.2090, arXiv.org.
    6. Romer, Paul M, 1990. "Endogenous Technological Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 71-102, October.
    7. Pier Saviotti & Koen Frenken, 2008. "Export variety and the economic performance of countries," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 201-218, April.
    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. Peter Klimek & Ricardo Hausmann & Stefan Thurner, 2012. "Empirical Confirmation of Creative Destruction from World Trade Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(6), pages 1-9, June.
    2. Ricardo Hausmann & César Hidalgo, 2011. "The network structure of economic output," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 309-342, December.
    3. Gino A.Gancia, 2003. "Globalization, Divergence and Stagnation," Development Working Papers 174, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano.
    4. 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.
    5. Backus, David K. & Kehoe, Patrick J. & Kehoe, Timothy J., 1992. "In search of scale effects in trade and growth," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 377-409, December.
    6. Dosi, Giovanni & Roventini, Andrea & Russo, Emanuele, 2019. "Endogenous growth and global divergence in a multi-country agent-based model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 101-129.
    7. Lundborg, Per & Segerstrom, Paul S., 2002. "The growth and welfare effects of international mass migration," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 177-204, January.
    8. 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.
    9. Daniel Nepelski & Giuditta De Prato, 2020. "Technological complexity and economic development," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 448-470, May.
    10. 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.
    11. Antonis Adam & Antonios Garas & Marina-Selini Katsaiti & Athanasios Lapatinas, 2023. "Economic complexity and jobs: an empirical analysis," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(1), pages 25-52, January.
    12. Peter Mayerhofer & Peter Huber, 2019. "Notwendigkeit und Möglichkeiten kooperativer Raum- und Wirtschaftsentwicklung in der Metropolregion Wien. Problemfelder, Handlungsoptionen, Umsetzungsmöglichkeiten," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 69764, April.
    13. Xiaozhen Qin & Shan Li & Weipan Xu & Xun Li, 2019. "Which Export Variety Matters for Urban Economic Growth, Related or Unrelated Variety?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-19, August.
    14. Hidalgo, César A., 2023. "The policy implications of economic complexity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(9).
    15. Athanasios Lapatinas & Alexandra Kyriakou & Antonios Garas, 2019. "Taxation and economic sophistication: Evidence from OECD countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(3), pages 1-21, March.
    16. Muhammad Nadeem Javaid & Pier-Paolo Saviotti, 2013. "Financial System and Technological Catching-up: an Empirical Analysis," Economic Complexity and Evolution, in: Andreas Pyka & Esben Sloth Andersen (ed.), Long Term Economic Development, edition 127, pages 461-483, Springer.
    17. Gersbach, Hans & Schetter, Ulrich & Schmassmann, Samuel, 2023. "From local to global: A theory of public basic research in a globalized world," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    18. Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm, 2020. "Aid for Trade flows and Poverty Reduction in Recipient-Countries," EconStor Preprints 213807, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    19. Aistleitner, Matthias & Gräbner, Claudius & Hornykewycz, Anna, 2021. "Theory and empirics of capability accumulation: Implications for macroeconomic modeling," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(6).
    20. Fabio Saracco & Riccardo Di Clemente & Andrea Gabrielli & Luciano Pietronero, 2015. "From Innovation to Diversification: A Simple Competitive Model," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(11), pages 1-19, November.

    More about this item

    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
    • F43 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Economic Growth of Open Economies
    • F47 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

    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:0909.3890. 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.