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The energy transition will significantly increase demand for minerals. This might create new economic opportunities for lower-income countries with resources, but it will also augment local social and environmental problems associated with the sector. The increasing number of social and environmental conflicts associated with mining in emerging economies is a manifestation of this tension and raises questions about just energy transitions. But can mining be done in more sustainable ways? Transition studies have been largely silent on this question. In this article, we urge transitions scholars to incorporate mining into their analyses of energy transitions and briefly mention possible starting points to move in this direction.

This paper studies how the number of categories exported by countries is related to the level and the volatility of the exchange rate. The results show that export variety is positively related to a weaker exchange rate and negatively related to exchange rate volatility. These relationships appear to be stronger for goods with higher technological intensity. Using data for a long panel of countries, the paper investigates these relationships using a methodology that allows for heterogeneous coefficients across countries and discusses two sources of bias that are often overlooked.

Marshallian externalities are the benefits obtained by a sector due to geographical agglomeration, and Jacobian effects are spillovers related to the novel combinations that can occur in cities with diversified economic activities. This paper argues that most of the quantitative literature on creative industries is asking whether they are a source of Marshallian or Jacobian effects, inasmuch as a stronger creative sector is a direction of diversification that is likely to have positive spillovers to the rest of the economy. Exploring both questions under a common framework, the results are consistent with the existence of Marshallian but not of Jacobian effects, which calls to caution when making policy suggestions regarding the sector. The degree of specialization in creative sectors is associated with higher sales and a higher number of rms in those sectors, albeit at a decreasing rate. A similar relationship is found for specialization in creative occupations and the incomes of those workers. Though there is no evidence of spillovers from creative industries in general to the rest of the economy, analyses at a more disaggregated level could produce different results and useful insights for policy.

We study the determinants of the survival of new export products of multi‐product firms. We use micro‐level data from Chile to estimate linear fixed‐effects and non‐linear survival models to show that a measure of “distance” between a firm's new export and its previous export basket is a negative and significant determinant of the survival of the new export, especially during its first year. Our interpretation of this finding is that exports further away from firms’ core competences have lower chances of survival in exports since it is more difficult for firms to achieve competitiveness in them. Our results suggest that country‐level diversification, at least through existing firms, should be gradual.

We study the effects of different types of obstacles to innovation on the probability of obtaining different firm-level innovation outcomes. We consider financial, knowledge, cooperation, regulatory and demand-related obstacles, which we separate into two categories: market structure and lack or uncertainty about demand. Using a pooled sample of four Chilean innovation surveys and an instrumental variables approach novel to this literature to address endogeneity, we find that only demand and financial barriers seem to have a negative effect on the probability of generating innovations. When financial or demand barriers are present, they seem to be binding and take prevalence over all other obstacles, and when they are absent, other barriers become significant. We provide evidence of heterogeneous effects on different sectors, considering not only manufacturing and services but also primaries, a comparison that has not been previously conducted and holds relevance for developing economies. We show that knowledge obstacles are relevant to manufacturing and market structure and regulatory obstacles are relevant in the services sector, while demand and financial obstacles appear to matter across the board. The pervasiveness of financial and demand obstacles, their relationship with the remaining barriers, and the observed sectoral differences have important policy implications.

When a sector suffers a reduction in the demand for its products, its suppliers are also affected. This paper shows that when demand for a product falls, there is a decline in the number of domestic plants producing inputs for that good. This result is obtained using data from Chilean manufacturing during the 1995–2006 period, using the increase in Chinese penetration as a demand shock. Using plant-product level data, I find that the observed effect on the number of suppliers is explained by multi-product plants dropping varieties, especially small plants, low-productivity plants and low-markup varieties. This is an intuitive but previously unobserved network effect through which import competition may have a productivity-enhancing effect.

We study the effect of different types of barriers to innovation (financial, demand, knowledge, market, cooperation, and regulatory barriers) on firm level innovation inputs and outputs. Using a pooled sample of three Chilean innovation surveys, based on an instrumental variables approach, we find that the probability of generating innovation outcomes is significantly reduced by demand and financial barriers. Regarding inputs for innovation, we find a clear negative relationship between financial and demand obstacles and the propensity to incur (non-R&D) innovation expenditures, but not with its intensity. We also provide evidence of heterogeneous effects across sectors, finding that knowledge obstacles are relevant for manufacturing and market structure obstacles for services, while demand and financial obstacles appear to matter across the board.

Con el fin de colaborar con los policy makers, empresarios, gobiernos locales y nacional y la sociedad en su conjunto, un grupo de investigadores e investigadoras dio forma a inicios de 2019 a la Red Chilena de Investigadores en Innovación, que busca abordar integradamente desafíos relativos a intercambiar y crear conocimiento sobre la innovación en el país, contribuir a la gestión de la innovación en todo tipo de organizaciones y apoyar la generación de políticas científicas, tecnológicas y de innovación.

This Working Paper provides an in-depth analysis of public-private collaboration (PPC) in Chilean productive development policies (PDPs) through five case studies under two specific polices: the Technology Consortia Program and the National Cluster Policy. The analysis is based on a set of more than 30 semi-structured, in-depth interviews, and is complemented by official written information on the workings of each of the instruments and particular cases. The most significant conclusion that emerges is the importance of having institutions that allow the government to learn from the implementation of new policies in order to improve them over time.

This essay looks at innovation and intellectual property rights from the perspective of a small middle-income country. Characterized by an open economy, and based on natural resources, Chile has an incipient level of technological capabilities aiming at reaching sustainable growth and development by adding value to natural resources through innovation. In contrast to other economies that deeply rely on natural resources, Chile as other middle income countries have, has achieved a moderate level of advanced human capital formation and infrastructure stock, but surprisingly has some world class exporting industries such as copper, wine and salmon.