HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series
HKS Working Paper No. RWP02-023
March 2002
Abstract
In the presence of uncertainty about what a country can be good at producing, there can be great social value to discovering costs of domestic activities because such discoveries can be easily imitated. We develop a general-equilibrium framework for a small open economy to clarify the analytical and normative issues. We highlight two failures of the laissez-faire outcome: there is too little investment and entrepreneurship ex ante, and too much production diversification ex post. Optimal policy consists of counteracting these distortions: to encourage investments in the modern sector ex ante, but to rationalize production ex post. We provide some informal evidence on the building blocks of our model.
Citation
Rodrik, Dani, and Ricardo Hausmann. “Economic Development as Self-Discovery.” KSG Faculty Research Working Papers Series RWP02-023, March 2002.