Productive efficiency, localization and industry polarization in Colombia in the context of the ninetees' commercial integration

Abstract

In order to give back industry its role as major engine of structural change, since the second half of the eighties the Colombian government has introduced a series of commercial adjustments and reforms, eliminating the anti-exporter bias, reassigning resources to comparative advantage activities and intensifying the use of factors. As a corollary of the above, the industry placed in the different regions would increase its productivity and efficiency levels, changing simultaneously the localization pattern and reducing its concentration on the so called "golden triangle". From an analytical perspective of the geography-economy development relationship, this paper examines the major changes that took place in the aspects mentioned above, questioning the links between market liberalization and efficiency, localization and concentration that the orthodox approach proposes. It is concluded that productivity and efficiency improvements, as well as the industrial development based on natural resources in some peripheral regions, contributed to sharpening the trend to polarization.

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