Abstract

Latin American structuralism (LAS) is a significant part of the heterodox tradition in the theory of long-term growth, with a focus on the problems of developing economies that started their industrialisation process when other regions had already accumulated substantial technological capabilities. The emergence of a centre–periphery system posed specific problems to growth and distribution in laggard economies, which LAS discusses in a systematic way. In this paper we present a model that, first, captures key insights of the LAS school, such as the persistency of technological asymmetries and structural heterogeneity; second, it can be used to analyse the impacts of shocks and policies based on how they affect the supply-side and demand-side parameters of the model; third, it links more closely (post-)Keynesian macroeconomics based on the BOP constraint with the evolutionary microeconomics concerned with the dynamics of learning; last, it can be used as a toolbox and a teachable model in the analysis of interactions between structural change, technological catching up and long-term growth.

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