Productivity and Management,

This article analyses the structural changes in Latin Ameri-can industry, which speeded up in the 1990s with the con-solidation in the region of the external openness programmes, the deregulation of many markets, and the privatization of major sectors of industrial activity which had previously been dominated by State enterprises. The branches of manufac-turing which have turned in the best relative performances over the last twenty years are natural resource-based indus-tries producing staple industrial commodities, industries as-sembling computers, video equipment, television sets or clothing, and the motor industry, which has been given pref-erential treatment in government economic policy. In con-trast, industries producing labour-intensive final goods, those making intensive use of technological knowledge and new product design engineering, or those producing heavy capi-tal goods have been losing relative weight. The pattern of production specialization and the places occupied in world markets for manufactures have clearly been changing, with greater emphasis on utilization of the natural comparative advantages of the region (i.e., its abundant natural resources) or on sectors which have been given special treatment in in-dustrial policy. The article explores the behaviour of the Latin American industrial structure in terms of productivity, com-paring it with that of the developed countries. Using the case of the United States as a reference universe, it estimates the labour productivity gap with respect to that country and evalu-ates the performance of countries and industrial branches in the region as a function of that parameter