Cambio tecnologico y dinamica industrial en América latina[Technological change and industrial dynamics in Latin america]

Topics that this article analyses constitute an intersection between technological change and industrial dynamics literature. Analysis is centered around the relationship between the shapes of technical knowledge accumulation in a given industry and the probability that innovation could be the vehicle to new firm entrance to the sector. Studies for developed countries adopt two approaches: technological regimes and industry life cicle, both take an evolutionary perspective. Section II offers a review of that literature. Section III, after examining if different sector modes of innovatory processes are associated with different timing, characters and survival chances for entrants in a given industry, focuses on dynamics conclusions emerging from technological change for manufacturing firms in Latinamerican countries. Section IV offers some final marks. The main contributions of this article are: i) an original perspective for technological change understanding in Latinamerica with an equivalent notion of "technological advantage" employed in studies for developed countries; ii) it suggests that in a context where firms innovate mainly through absortion of knowledge developed by other organizations, established firms tend to accumulate advantages in order to incorporate technical progress and iii) following that, in those activities where product or process innovation constituye competitive advantages for established firms, innovative entry will be less frequent.