AUTHOR=Galvan Lisette Paola Cervantes , Campo Carlos Carmona , Stanojevic Savo , Alzate David Villada 

TITLE=Evidence of the Middle-Income Trap in Latin American Countries: Factor Analysis Approach Using Regression and the ARDL Model

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Environmental Science

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/environmental-science/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2022.937405

DOI=10.3389/fenvs.2022.937405

ISSN=2296-665X

ABSTRACT=The middle-income trap (MIT) is often accompanied by the decline or stagnation of economic growth, unreasonable domestic industrial structure, and serious polarization be-tween the rich and the poor. However, due to different international environments, different specific national conditions, and different development policies adopted by each country, the manner in which to get out of the MIT varies. Transforming the mode of economic growth and realizing sustainable economic development is an important means for a country or region to escape from the "trap" of economic stagnation. This study carries out an analysis of different economic growth factors of Latin America countries (we selected 19 MIT countries out of 33) and compared them with Singapore and Korea, which are in a high-income range. We used a regression model to find the relationship of variables in each country and the impact on the economic growth due to these variables. The study finds using correlation and regression analysis, that trade and foreign direct in-vestment (FDI) play a major role in avoiding the MIT by having a strong regression with gross domestic product (GDP) for high-income countries while having a weak regression in Latin American countries. Another factor is that industrialization and services export play a vital role in avoiding the MIT in Singapore and South Korea, and the same model should be used in Latin American countries to avoid the MIT. Furthermore, using the ARDL model we validated the results of a regression model and established that similar factors are impacting Latin American countries’ MIT. Correlation analysis is used to determine the relationship of selected factors and their impacting strength on the growth of an economy. In the final section, we present to Latin American countries, their main policy gaps according to their unique characteristics and recommend policy with suggestions for avoiding the MIT by comparing their economies with those of high-income countries.