ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the experiences of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) oil exporters in their pursuit of economic diversification. It talks about productive development policies for the six Latin American oil producers: Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Trinidad, Tobago and Venezuela. The chapter discusses the stylised facts of the evolution of diversification of these countries, compared to other LAC countries and other oil exporting countries. Economic diversification has been a desired outcome of Latin American policy makers since the 1950s. When looking at Latin American oil exporters, they seem to show diversification trends similar to other LAC countries and have shown fewer gains than other oil abundant countries, but their starting points were different. In particular, Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela experienced more frequent changes in productive development policies. Ecuador, Mexico and Trinidad and Tobago had more stable policies.
