ABSTRACT
The literature on export-led growth in developing countries has burgeoned in recent years. This chapter examines the Chilean experience with exports and growth by constructing several measures of diversification and structural change in Chilean exports from disaggregated data over a thirty-year period. Then, using these measures it evaluates a number of relationships among the structure of exports, export growth, Chilean growth, and world growth. By looking at the evolution and structural change of exports by sector over the long run, the chapter finds a number of interesting results. First, the degree of export diversification in Chile increased sharply from about 1975 onwards, with the process of diversification being essentially completed by 1988. Second, a crude association of 'traditionality' with primary products and 'non-traditionality' with manufactures fails to represent the Chilean experience. Third, the short-run dynamics of diversification and structural change show a marked pattern.
