Industry and Economic Development in Latin America

We analyse the evolution of Manufacturing Value-Added per inhabitant in 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries during the period 1980-2002, and present a comparison with more industrialized countries. We find that very few Latin American countries have experienced an increase in that variable during the sample period, corresponding the most outstanding increases of the real value of this variable the following countries: Dominican Republic with 70%, Chile with 46%, Costa Rica 28% and Mexico with 22%, but unfortunately many other countries have experienced very small increases or even stagnation or decrease in this variable which has an important impact on economic development. In spite of the decrease experienced during the peeriod 1997-2002, and thanks to the slight recovery of 2003-2004, Argentina follows to be the Latin American country with the highest value of this variable, although very far below the values of Spain, the USA and other industrialized countries. Our main conclusions support the development of socio-economic policies which give a high priority to the increase of Manufacturing in Latin American countries.