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Reflections of Prof. Hausmann in his conversation with Gustavo Grobocopatel.

The importance of the know-how of the countries in the world today.

Countries are rich because of what they know how to do. The poorer the country, the more they tell you about its natural resources. Countries are not rich because of what they have, but because of what they know how to do.

The transformation of countries has to do with discovering what to do, new things to do and that happens fundamentally in finding better ways of doing things or doing things that were not done before.

The State needs economic development and, on the other hand, economic activities need rules, norms, legal frameworks and other tools of the State. There is complementarity between things.

All technologies are recipes for know-how and are made up of two components: What can be bought and what cannot. He can buy you a vehicle, but not a highway or traffic laws. Each lives in an ecosystem of public goods. What there has to be is a certain "co-evolution" where the entrepreneurs and the ecosystem around them.

The difference between knowledge and know-how.

We can say that knowledge is objective, it is something that exists "out there." It can exist in a book. It is a truth that has support, it is codified. Know-how is something that only exists in brains, not in books. It is the ability to identify a problem and how to respond to that situation.

Know-how moves at different scales and at different times. It moves through migration and through diasporas.

Diversification, specialization and opportunities for Argentina due to the Pandemic.

In Argentina there is no lack of unicorns, but it has diasporas.

At the moment diasporas are occurring in many countries. And that is generating a lot of know-how movement. What is generated with diasporas is that people know about their country of origin and their new country. It is normal for countries to trade and invest more in other countries where they have diasporas.

Argentina is a country with many growth opportunities, mainly in rural areas, due to the development of agricultural activity. But the development of those areas that are not rural such as the Conurbano must also be considered.

The pandemic forced us to rethink how to do things. It allows teleworking, which is working from home, even when abroad. This will cause a re-configuration of the value chains where many tasks will be able to be done from other places.

One of the problems that has always been said about Argentina is that it is remote. With teleworking this restriction becomes less important.

Renewable energies are much more expensive to transport than fossil fuels, this leads to locating productive activities where renewable energies are generated. The South of Argentina has areas of very strong winds. The North has solar energy. In general Argentina produces a lot of biomass. That is the challenge for the country, to generate know-how with this raw material.

The things that work well you don't see. The world is growing and the possibilities of growth and development for countries as well.

The most important thing about the Pandemic is the impact it is having in Latin America. In this region it will cause effects that will be longer term than in other regions. It will leave scars.

The "we" of Argentina.

It took Argentines a long time to develop a national identity, due to the great immigration currents that existed. But today we can already say that there is a certain feeling of an Argentine "we", of cooperation and on which a country can be built.

Automatic translation from spanish.