Kristin Ranestad (University of Geneva, Suiza)
Some countries with resource abundance have accomplished remarkable progress (such as Australia, Canada and the Nordic countries), while others have had varied success or failed completely in their development (such as many African and Latin American countries). Various scholars suggest that natural resources and resource industries are made and produced through socio-economic developments which can involve more or less complex learning processes. The development of different knowledge bases can encourage specialisations which are necessary for the progress of competitive firms and industries, which in turn can lead to dissimilar trajectories between economies. It is argued that the main difference between the success cases and the cases of failure regarding resource based economies lays in the quality of institutions. If this is the case, how are well-functioning institutions developed and what has been the role of institutions in learning and innovation processes?
The aim of my project is to explore why two countries with relatively similar geographic and economic foundations, Chile and Norway, have experienced different development paths. They face similar communications and infrastructure challenges: they were both long, narrow countries, with major mountain areas and long coastlines with fiords and coastal islands. Historically, they have developed many of the same natural resource sectors, and based a large amount of their output, income and trade earnings on natural resources. What is known as manufacturing or high-tech industries have in both countries only involved a small part of the economy.
Regardless of the two countries’ similarities, they have shown variations in their economic growth and speed of growth. The statistics indicate that Chile’s economy grew more slowly than Norway’s economy in the twentieth century. Norway is today one of the richest countries in the world and is considered a developed country with little difference between rich and poor and a welfare state with social protection for the whole population. Chile, on the other hand, has been characterised as an under- or less developed country with deficit problems, debt and until recently relatively slow growth. Chile has huge social class differences and a major concentration of wealth in the higher classes.
What were the underlying causes of the different developments? What kinds of knowledge and innovation mechanisms developed in the two countries? Which institutions were involved? The research will be limited to the last part of the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century, the period before and during which the two countries diverged economically.
In this comparative study I will investigate the role of institutions in knowledge development and innovation processes. As a part of this comparison I will implement a profound case study of technical education and its role and function in the development of the two metal and mineral sectors. Education and human capital contribute to learning processes and technological development and can in this context be key factors to explain the divergence.
This study can contribute to a general theoretical and empirical understanding of development in countries with resource based industries.
