Juntos o amontonados. Una nueva aproximación a la trayectoria del MERCOSUR

Abstract

For some time now, the difficulties in consolidating the MERCOSUR are no longer new. Today, economic and political instabilities appear to be the only sustainable and common facet in Latin American countries. Therefore, it is interesting to discuss with some evidence whether MERCOSUR is an institution that evolves consistently with its objectives despite the circumstances, or whether MERCOSUR is just a set of countries that like leaves pile up according to wind and luck. We addressed the periodization of MERCOSUR's lifetime based on a new approach. The main contribution of this paper is a precise delimitation of the stages in the evolution of the MERCOSUR from a method that reduces the risk of diverse types of biases. In fact, we showed evidence in favor of the first characterization, but the second prevails.

Exploring the U-shape geographical bias in manufactured exports of MERCOSUR countries

“…Both peaks of the series of cumulative breaks coincide with two critical moments of MERCOSUR, according to the k-means periodization proposed in González and Delbianco (2021). As reported by these authors, the first one closes the MERCOSUR's prehistory and gives place to the deployment phase (1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999), and the second one opens a regressive transformation process (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015).…”

“…Although MERCOSUR was born in 1991, González and Delbianco (2021) found that its deployment phase began in 1986 and extended until 1999. While the years prior to 1986 are identified as its prehistory, the 2000-2006 phase is considered as an overcoming stage in which MERCOSUR showed its greatest institutional development.…”

“…The exploitation of economies of scale and agglomeration increases firms' productivity (Krugman, 1980;Helpman and Krugman, 1989). This reduction in the average costs represents an improvement in the sectoral competitiveness (Harberger, 1998;González, 2009) from non-spurious efforts (Fajnzylber, 1988). Moreover, Puga and Venables (1998) argued that the industrialization of a region is the expected result because of market enlargement, in the context of a South-South RTA between partners with similar economies.…”