DOI: 10.3886/icpsr07591
title: Transnational Relations and Regional Regulation in Ecuador, Peru and Colombia, 1975
title: Archival Version

description: This data collection contains survey data gathered from 90 chemical and metalworking (light engineering) industries in Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia in 1975, five years after the Andean Group (a regional subgroup of the Latin American Free Trade Association) instituted Decision 24, a policy that regulated foreign investment in member countries. The three countries with firms represented in the study were national political economies characterized by different degrees of industrialization and hence different configurations of sociopolitical forces. They were also relatively politically stable during the five-year period before the survey, thereby implying a greater measure of continuity in the application of Decision 24 than was observed in the other Andean Group countries of Chile and Bolivia, or Venezuela, which did not join the Andean Group until 1973. Also, because of the application of Law 444 in Colombia and the General Law of Industries and ITINTEC in Peru, it was anticipated that managers in those two countries would be more conscious of the range of choice available in the selection of technology and that firms would have recently begun to increase the level of in-house R&D activities. The chemical and metalworking industries fell within the ambit of Andean industrial programming activities, so managers in those industries were expected to represent a group of relatively well-informed persons with respect to Andean Group issues. The data were obtained from an orally administered, primarily open-ended questionnaire given to managers of the selected firms. The survey's data measure: (1) the size of the firm in terms of assets, earnings, employment, and sales, (2) the ownership structure of the firm and changes over time, (3) self-evaluation of future market position and development plans, (4) source of technology, including explanation of the choice, cost of technology (royalties), and date for all licenses, (5) R&D activities and expenditures of the firm, (6) firm's relationship to the integrative system (imports from and exports to other Andean countries and the world), and (7) attitudes of firm managers toward Decision 24 and toward attempts by government to regulate Direct Foreign Investment (DFI) and Technology Transfer.
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: Dataset
description: The chemical and metalworking (light engineering) industries in Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia in 1975.
description: The 90 cases represent almost the universe of firms meeting the selection criteria. Within the chemical and metalworking industries, firms were selected from specific product lines or sectors that were notable for the complexity and volatility of their technology, as well as from sectors characterized by relatively simple, stable technologies. The need to choose sectors with a sufficient number of cases to permit comparisons was also important. These methodological requirements meant that the survey could not be a random sample of industrial firms in Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru. Rather, the intention was to capture the universe of firms the selected product lines within the chemical and metalworking industries.