The Atlas of Economic Complexity by The Growth Lab at Harvard Kennedy School

The Atlas of Economic Complexity is a powerful research and data visualization tool that allows people to explore global trade flows across markets, track these dynamics over time and discover new growth opportunities for every country. The Atlas places the industrial capabilities and knowhow of a country at the heart of its growth prospects, where the diversity and complexity of existing capabilities heavily influence how growth happens.

Developed at Harvard’s Center for International Development, the Atlas combines trade data with synthesized insights from CID’s research on Economic Complexity in a way that is accessible and interactive. As a dynamic resource, the tool is continually evolving with new data and features to help answer questions such as:

What does a country import and export?
How has its trade evolved over time?
What are the drivers of export growth?
Which new industries are likely to emerge or disappear in a given geography? Which are likely to disappear?
What are the GDP growth prospects of a given country in the next 5-10 years, based on its productive capabilities?
The original online Atlas was launched as a companion tool to the book, The Atlas of Economic Complexity: Mapping Paths to Prosperity. Since then, the online Atlas has been significantly enhanced with new features, refreshed visualizations and updated, more accurate datasets.

Today, the Atlas is used worldwide by policymakers, investors, entrepreneurs, academics and the general public as an important resource for understanding a country’s economic structure.