Venezuelan manufacturing, SME decline, and failed transition

Alan Mulhern ()
Additional contact information
Alan Mulhern: Kingston University London

No 2000-7, Economics Discussion Papers from School of Economics, Kingston University London

Abstract: Venezuela’s economic system has been characterised by two attempts at “transition” to a modern economy: the first in 1958 at the start of its democratic system; the second in 1989 when it attempted to bring into being an open free market economy. These attempts have been unsuccessful in creating an open, participative and democratic economic society. One expression of this has been the relative decline in the manufacturing sector of Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) since 1960 and their absolute decline since the late 1970s. Statistical evidence is presented on this decline and it is placed in international context. Econometric testing of explanatory variables shows the significance of structural barriers in manufacturing and a lack of efficiency and innovation efforts by SMEs as key economic determinants of this process. This decline results from the deeply exclusionary nature of the economic structure, the roots of which lie in Venezuela’s political history. A genuine transitional economy implies a participative economic democracy and access to the productive resources of the economy so new wealth can be created and new firms can come into existence. The decline of SMEs highlights not only an economic problem in Venezuela but also the wider political problem of lack of real democratic economic participation.

Keywords: Democracy; Venezuela; Transition; Manufacturing; Small Firms. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L00 P27 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2000-01-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/6716/1/Mulhern-A-6716.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:kngedp:2000_007

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics Discussion Papers from School of Economics, Kingston University London Kingston University London, School of Economics, Penrhyn Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, KT1 2EE, UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Andrea Ingianni ().