Latin American Growth and Exports to China*

ABSTRACT

After 2001, the booming trade between China and Latin American and the Caribbean countries (LAC) has led to concerns about a potential ‘resource curse’ and losses in manufacturing due to rising import competition. Little attention was paid to potential gains to LAC from growing Chinese demand for commodities. I address this issue empirically adopting a difference-in-difference framework and find that China's demand did deliver significantly higher growth rates to LAC exporters over the last decade and a half.