Complejos industriales y ventajas internacionales: el enfoque de analisis de cluster para la formación de cadenas productivas en los departamentos de Piura y Loreto

Using diverse techniques and indicators, and statistics regarding the productive and export structure of Peru and two regions (Piura and Loreto), this paper estimates the 1994 set of industrial complexes of the Peruvian economy. It also identifies a set of export products (i.e., tariff lines) in which the two regions have revealed comparative advantage. The estimation and identification results suggest that, as a working hypothesis, economic growth based upon the exploitation of natural resources or unskilled labor in primary and light industries which produce standard goods at the inicial stages of the productive process would not generate sufficient income and employment effects to the growing labor force in the Peruvian economy. Thus, the ‘trickle down’ effect would not have a significant size or will be taking a long time to fully crystallize in the economy. At the same time, this particular growth path will spur the growth of the tertiary sectors (formal and informal) with low labor productivity and wages. This result implies that enhancing the income and employment effects of exploiting export products with revealed comparative advantages and intensive in the use of natural resources or unskilled labor, it will require advancing in the industrialization process through productive chains and higher stages of the productive process in sectors around the export centers which produce those export products.