BIOECONOMY, PRODUCTIVE SPECIALIZATION AND THE INTERNATIONAL INSERTION OF LATIN AMERICA: THE CASE STUDY OF URUGUAY, ECUADOR AND BOLIVIA
This research intends to evidence the structuring profiles for the bioeconomy in Latin American through an accessible methodology, and to understand if the bioeconomy reissues a new version of the theory of comparative advantages in Latin America, which could make it a typically neoclassical approach, as well as to understand the consequences for the process of inclusive and sustainable development. The hypothesis is that the bioeconomy, while based on comparative advantages, maintains structural heterogeneity, and does not promote the overcoming of underdevelopment. Therefore, we seek to present and discuss the visions of bioeconomy at the theoretical level and to outline relations with the problem of comparative advantages and productive specialization. At the empirical level, it becomes imperative to examine the existence of concrete capacities for the bioeconomy in Latin America, for which we have elected to conduct a case study based on three countries in the region with specialization in natural resources and which are comparable in size: Uruguay, Ecuador, and Bolivia. A multicriteria analysis will be applied, a technique that facilitates the approach to multidisciplinary problems involving consequences for the environment. Finally, the investigation of strategies and plans related to the theme in the selected countries provides the possibility to examine implications of the evidence obtained in contrast with the current policies in each case.