Economic Development as Self-Discovery

Ricardo Hausmann and Dani Rodrik

No 8952, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In the presence of uncertainty about what a country can be good at producing, there can be great social value to discovering costs of domestic activities because such discoveries can be easily imitated. We develop a general-equilibrium framework for a small open economy to clarify the analytical and normative issues. We highlight two failures of the laissez-faire outcome: there is too little investment and entrepreneurship ex ante, and too much production diversification ex post. Optimal policy consists of counteracting these distortions: to encourage investments in the modern sector ex ante, but to rationalize production ex post. We provide some informal evidence on the building blocks of our model.

JEL-codes: L1 O1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-lam
Note: ITI
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (69)

Published as Hausmann, Ricardo and Dani Rodrik. "Economic Development As Self-Discovery," Journal of Development Economics, 2003, v72(2,Dec), 603-633.

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Journal Article: Economic development as self-discovery (2003)
Working Paper: Economic Development as Self Discovery (2002)
Working Paper: Economic Development as Self-Discovery (2002)
Working Paper: Economic Development as Self-Discovery (2002)
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