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In the innovation and development literature, natural resources ( NR) are generally viewed as a curse for developing nations and NR-based industries as having little potential to innovate and drive long-term growth. This has led policy and development experts to opt for strategies to induce a shift in the pattern of specialization towards other sectors. This paper proposes a different approach. By exploring recent evidence from the Argentinean agricultural sector and the mining industry in Chile, it points to the window of opportunity that NR industries offer as a platform to develop knowledge intensive industries with which to support economic development in resource-endowed countries. The lessons drawn from these findings suggest that development strategies can also promote more innovative knowledge intensive NR-based industries rather than moving away from them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to build, for the first time, a spatial housing price index for the Chilean communities. The first step is to recover hedonic prices of three housing attributes by estimating a mixed index model using a generalised method of moments ( GMM) procedure. Second, a censored almost ideal demand system is estimated to build expenditures for every community and to compare them among different spatial units, while maintaining a constant utility level. Using micro data from the 2009 CASEN survey, we show that there are important differences in the expenditure of a consumer in Santiago to access the same level of welfare in another community in the country and there are important differences in housing prices among Chilean communities [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares new forms of political economy based on export orientation in New Zealand and Chile and relates them to the evolution of the wine industries in those countries. The wine sector is seen as a key example of an export-driven agro-industry in both countries. The paper applies the new political economy to a comparative analysis of land, production and exports in the wine sectors of both Chile and New Zealand. The nature of firms in the wine sector in both countries is examined and some broad implications for development at the local scale introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper explores how transnational corporations can ‘transform’ place and livelihoods within a country that has decided to insert itself forcefully within the evolving world economy. The aim is to explore some of the linkages and flows across space that characterise contemporary global capitalism. More specifically, the paper examines the relationship between transnational corporations and fruit production in Chile through examining the formation of global networks and the regulatory system within Chile. The more precise networks created between fruit transnationals and contract farming are examined before the analysis focuses on how the relationship between local development and transnational capitalism has evolved through time in the Guatulame Valley. Two distinct phases are outlined: an early growth phase and one of consolidation and land concentration. The paper ends by pointing to some key themes of transnational capitalism and local development theory in non-core economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of aquaculture in the fishery sector is increasing. The growth of aquaculture complements the stagnant growth of extractive fisheries. Many countries are now entering this emerging economic activity. This positive feature has some serious drawbacks when the country has no local institutions to ensure the environmental sustainability of aquaculture. The Chilean salmon farming industry has grown dramatically since the mid-1980s to become the leading exporter of farmed salmon after Norway. The sector, however, suffered decline due to the sanitary crisis in 2007. It is said that this crisis was caused by overexploitation and overconcentration of fish farms. This paper tries to explain the mechanisms of the sanitary crisis - a 'tragedy of the commons' - by paying attention to the role of endogenous factors such as local knowledge, capacity building, local ecological conditions and the emergence of local institutions, focusing on the case of salmon farming in Chile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the concept of the globalisation of agriculture and how export-oriented agriculture in Chile interacts with the global agri-food system. It tries to analyse change in the Chilean fruit sector within the framework of the global commodity chain in which production in one part of the world economy can be linked through contracts and the agency of fruit companies to consumption in other global locations. The commodity chain analysis is traced down to the local scale of an export-oriented fruit-producing area in Chile where the impacts of contract farming on land markets, small- and large-scale farming, labour relations and peasant communities are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Coastal southern Chile includes a set of territories in a continuous process of bio‐social construction which cannot be understood without considering scalar politics. Environmental concerns, included in broader neoliberal frameworks of governance, play a central role in the performance of such scales. Thus, this case shows some of the patterns of relations between scalarity and the management of key ecological features. Additionally, territorial governance and scalar production occur in a geographical context over which the State has low effective degree of direct control. Consequently, such processes also need group and individual internalisation of new rules through the creation of mechanisms of self‐interest that allow agents' ‘conduct of the conduct’ Thus, scales act as sources and key elements in the generation of governmental instruments that frame and influence individual actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]