Desarrollo energético en América Latina y la economía mundial

¡oy Dunkerley I THE ENERGY SECTOR IN DEVELOPING AND lNDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRIES can consumption appears to be slightly higher than Asían (about 0.43) . lf, as is often the case, only commercial energy (Iargely oil) is considered, the differences are much wider. Industrialized countries consume about twenty times as much as developing areas, and there is a wide range within the developing world. The countries of Latin America (at 0.5 toe) consume substantially more than the other regions (both about 0.1 toe). In most developing .and industrialized countries, this oil is largely imported and accounts for a significant part of total imports -typicalIy between a quarter and a third after 1973, up from about 10% before them. There is little systematic difference between the share of total imports in LDCs and industria– lized countries. What accounts for these differences? 1 shall consider five factors: differences in income levels, in the composition of fue! supplies, in tlle energy embodied in imports and exports, the structure of the varÍous economies and in prices. INCOME LEVELS To take the leve! of income first, much of this wide disparity in per capita energy consumption between industrialized and developing areas explained by differences in Ievels of income (or Gross Domestic Product). In fact, if total energy consumption in divided by GDP converted into dollars at market rates of exchange, the resulting energy¡output ratio, which measures the overall energy intensity of an economy is in Africa and the Far East, substantially aboye that of the industrialized countries (see table 1, lines 8 and 9) . This suggests that as development proceeds energy inputs into the economy fall rather than rise. lt is widely recognized, however, that the use of market exchange r,ates to arrive at a comparable estimate of real output, or GDP for a series of countries can be seriously misleading. Specifically, they under– estimate real output of the poorer countries perhaps by as much as one half compared with industrialized countries 2 • If GDP is re-calculated srrving B. Kravis, Alan W. Heston, and Robert Summers in "Real GDP Per Capita for More than One Hundred Countries", Economic ¡oumal, 88 aune 1978), pp. 215-242, estimate "real" per capita GDP based on purchasing power parity rates of exchange. In brief, this artide indicates that the use of market rales of exchange underestimates the real output of developing countries relative to the United States by about one-half. 19