Uruguay at the mirror. An empirical analysis of the Uruguayan productive structure through the Method of Reflections

Many Works have pointed at Uruguayan productive structure, as one of the main causes of the country’s low long term growth rate. This paper presents a different empirical view of the relationship using recent developments proposed by Hausmann and Hidalgo (2009). Their Method of Reflections allows an approximation to the level of complexity that a productive structure has, and therefore their indicators yield hints to that economy’s future growth. Results show that Uruguay has never reached the production of sophisticated products, and it has even moved away from the most sophisticated products it has ever reached in the period 1962-2008. As a consequence, Uruguayan level of productive structure complexity exhibit a lowering trend, especially after 1994, which calls attention for industrial policy if the recent path of high growth is to be maintained.