Patterns of technical change in the Latin American economies: 1963-2008

Abstract

This paper employs the growth-distribution schedule to study the patterns of technical change in Latin America in the 1963-2008 period. The growth-distribution schedule makes it possible to visualize the changes in labor and capital productivities over time. Regardingthe period as a whole, the study revealed the predominance of the Marx-biased and the factor-saving patterns with an increasing capital-labor ratio. There were two cases of de-mechanization and two cases of technical regress. However, there were three phases of technical change: 1963-1980, 1980-2000 and 2000-2008. In the first phase, the Marx-biased pattern was predominant, in the second phase there was a technical regress, in the third phase the pattern with the largest number of observations was the factor-saving with an increasing capital-labor ratio.

Keywords:
Technical Progress; Latin America; Growth-Distribution Schedule; Labor Productivity; Capital Productivity