The mining sectors in Chile and Norway, ca. 1870–1940: the development of a knowledge gap

Abstract

The mining sectors in Chile and Norway, ca. 1870-1940: the development of a knowledge gap Chile and Norway are two 'natural resource intensive economies', which have had different development trajectories, yet are closely similar in industrial structure and geophysical conditions. This paper seeks to contribute to the debate about how and why some economies based on natural resource activities have been more dynamic and innovative than others by indicating contributing factors of key differences in one natural resource sector that both countries developed, namely mining. While the Chilean mining sector was considered technologically advanced in the mid-nineteenth century, a technological gap within the sector emerged from the turn of the century, multinationals created enclaves, thousands of mines were abandoned and many of the ore deposits in the country remained unexploited. At the same time, Chile's share of world copper production fell dramatically. The mining sector in Norway, on the other hand, was innovative, multinational companies were more integrated in the host economy and production of large-scale electrometallurgical production started in the late nineteenth century. In an in-depth comparative analysis, I explore how comparable organisations in the two countries-notably universities and mining schools providing formal mining education; organisations aimed to transfer technology and geological research centresdeveloped knowledge and how they help to understand the development gap between the two sectors. The comparison of knowledge organisations shows that more knowledge was developed and accumulated in Norway than in Chile, which indicates that there was a knowledge gap between the two countries. Mining instructions were similar, but there were striking differences between the two countries when it came to 1) number of graduates, 2) number of travel arrangements for practical learning and 3) organised geological mapping and ore surveys. These differences contribute to explain the emerging development gap of the two sectors. The underlying reason for the knowledge gap may be linked to the role of the state. In Norway, the state was much more active in supporting knowledge development through funding of education, scholarship arrangements and the National Geological Survey. In Chile, despite this huge natural resource potential, these key knowledge organisations were given lower priority by the broader set of political decision-makers.

Natural Resources Curse in the Long Run? Bolivia, Chile and Peru in the Nordic Countries’ Mirror

“…The rest of the countries from [31]. Few previous works have compared long-term development trajectories of Latin American and Nordic countries [23,32,33]. In contrast to Blomström and Meller, this article presents robust quantitative evidence for the pre-1950 period [32].…”

“…She analyzes and compares two of the 'natural resource-intensive economies' countries that are considered here, namely Chile and Norway [33,102]. They have been closely similar in industrial structure and geophysical conditions, and they had similar growth during the 19th and early Twentieth Century; yet, they have had different development trajectories thereafter.…”

“…Regarding Chile, higher population growth rates since the beginning of the period under analysis are noteworthy. During the 19th Century, this was in part related to the fact that Chile was a country that received migrants, whereas the Nordic countries expelled migrants [33,81,82]. For instance, according to Grytten, between 1836 and 1930, only Ireland had more migrants than Norway [83].…”

“…A key point here is that it seems like multinational companies have been more integrated in the Norwegian economy (and Nordic economies more widely) than in the Andean economies and that Nordic countries have benefited more from foreign investments than Andean countries [32,99]. It is reasonable to believe that differences in 'absorptive capacity', which in turn can be related to discrepancies in knowledge development, contribute to explaining such differences [33]. The 'knowledge gap' between the Nordic and the Andean countries is further discussed in the next section.…”

“…Likewise, since we share the idea that trade is a critical factor to understand the divergent patterns of these economies [23], we present a very long-term analysis of trade expansion and composition. We also expand the sample of Ranestad's previous work on human capital in Norway and Chile, to include three Andean and three Nordic countries, as well as the covered period until 2015 [33]. Furthermore, our work also considers the potential role played by taxation in contributing to the different development paths.…”