The Commodity Composition of Export Portfolios: A Comparative Analysis of Latin America.

We construct measures of export similarity among seventeen Latin American countries over the period 1962-1991, and use cluster analyses to identify groups of countries with similar comparative advantage based mainly on their principal primary products. While exports of primary products have declined in importance for Latin America, they still play a significantly large role. There is a long-run trend toward increasing export similarity among Latin American countries, which consists of convergence between clusters and divergence within clusters. This result suggests that the increased export similarity is due primarily to an increase in exports of differentiated manufactures relative to primary products. The convergence in the export patterns of the largest economies (Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico) provides further support for this hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]