Reclaiming the Lost Century of Growth: Building Learning Economies in Latin America and the Caribbean

Latin America has lost not decades but a century of growth due to its inability to learn: to identify, adapt, and implement the new technologies emerging from the Second Industrial Revolution. Superstars like Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile fell behind peers like France and Germany, while the entire region retrogressed in industries it once dominated and was unable to take advantage of new opportunities that propelled similarly lagging countries like Portugal, Spain, Korea, Japan, Sweden, and Finland to the advanced country club. Data presented in this volume suggest this remains the case today as Latin American firms continue to lag in the rate of adopting new technologies and in their efficient use within firms. Latin America entered the 20th century technologically unarmed, lacking technical and entrepreneurial capabilities. Building learning economies will require three areas of reform. First, the demand for knowledge (innovation) must be increased by improving managerial and technical capabilities as well as the incentives to innovate. Second, beyond building necessary human capital, new ideas can be facilitated by reorienting universities and research institutions to partner with the private sector and serve as seedbeds for new entrepreneurs and industries. Finally, government policy and the overall enabling environment need to support the ongoing process of risky experimentation that constitutes the development process.