Essays on Industrialization in Colombia

Berry edited this collection of studies on Colombian industrialisation, published in 1983. The reference has not verified the individual contributions.

The subject is Colombia's manufacturing development from the early twentieth century, which followed a pattern common in Latin America while differing in specifics. Colombian industry developed initially around textiles in Antioquia, financed substantially from coffee export earnings, and later expanded under import substitution policies in the postwar decades. Colombia's industrialisation was less state-directed than Brazil's or Mexico's, its industrial concentration was lower, and its macroeconomic management was more conservative, which produced slower but steadier growth and which is why Colombia avoided the debt crisis defaults that hit most of the region in 1982.

The questions such a volume examines include the sources of capital for early industrialisation and the role of coffee earnings; the effect of protection on the structure and efficiency of manufacturing; the size distribution of firms and the role of small enterprise; employment generation and whether industrialisation absorbed labour from agriculture; regional concentration; and the effect of trade policy shifts.

Berry's own research has concentrated on small and medium enterprise, on employment and on income distribution in Latin America, and his work generally argues that small firms matter more for employment than industrial policy debates recognise.

This is academic economic history from 1983. Colombian industrial structure has changed substantially since, particularly after the trade opening of the early 1990s. Readers should consult the table of contents and treat the volume as a period study.