Transnational corporations and structural changes in industry in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico

The central focus of this article is on the role played by transnational corporations in the industrial realignment of Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico between the end of the import substitution stage and the early 1990s. Based on recently published studies dealing with the sweeping changes occurring in Latin America's manufacturing sector following the region's economic crisis and liberalization process, a computer programme developed by the ECLAC Division of Production, Productivity and Management has been used to examine the changes that have taken place in the sector's production structure (sectoral composition and efficiency); and its linkages with the global economy. In order to bring out the influence of the role played by transnational corporations in these processes, manufacturing activities have been classified and analysed on the basis of whether these corporations have played a "leading", "supporting" or "marginal" part in those processes. Using this classification of industrial sectors, the authors were able to demonstrate that the transnational corporations' reactions and the industrial realignment process exhibited quite different modalities in each of the countries studied. These modalities or "styles" have been shaped by a combination of three groups of factors which are specific to each country: structural aspects, macroeconomic variables and institutional elements.