El rol de las economías internas y externas en el crecimiento regional: un análisis empírico para Latinoamérica

Abstract

Abstract: The study comprehensively explores how internal drivers such as labor productivity, scalability of production, and employment are articulated with external drivers: foreign direct investment, geographic proximity, and business density to explain the behavior of gross domestic product (GDP) at the subnational scale in Latin America. Through correlation analysis and qualitative contrast with multilateral reports and case studies, it is shown that both groups of variables are statistically significant and, together, explain a high proportion of the variation in regional GDP. Latin America's GDP depends mainly on domestic economies, highlighting labor productivity, productive scalability, and unemployment reduction as key factors. Externally, foreign direct investment is the main driver of growth, while geographic proximity and business density have minor or negative impacts. Overall, regional economic development results from the interaction between internal improvements and the influence of external investment.