Regional Competitiveness in Latin America. A Comparative Study of the Key Elements for Regional Performance

Cross-country comparison is critical to understand the success of some regions and the stagnation of others. There are regions in Latin America that consistently show high levels of economic, social and environmental indicators. These regions have a high endowment of factors associated with regional competitiveness. Research establishes that regions such as the Metropolitan region in Chile compete for foreign investment while companies within regions like O'Higgins and Antofagasta regions in Chile compete for product placement in international markets. These types of competition take place mainly between countries, but there are no comparative studies of regional competitiveness between countries for Latin America that allow to assess this type of competition. Using an input-output competitiveness model regional competitiveness is measured for Chile, Colombia and Mexico for the 2008-2017 period. The measurement allows for a comparison of regional competitiveness and performance across countries. The research results show that most of the differences in performance are mainly explained by factors such as education, technological skills, and training.