Professor · Economist

Elton Freitas

Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Universidade Federal de Sergipe (UFS)
Postdoctoral Researcher, Center for Collective Learning, IAST, Toulouse School of Economics
PhD and Visiting Researcher, CEDEPLAR/UFMG

My research sits at the intersection of economic complexity, regional development, international trade, and industrial economics, using tools from network science and quantitative methods to understand how economies diversify, transform structurally, and converge or diverge over time.

463 Citations

11 h-index

12 i10-index

via Google Scholar

Google Scholar Lattes ORCID LinkedIn GitHub

Research

My work combines complexity science, regional economics, industrial economics, and network analysis to study how economies grow, diversify, and fall behind.

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Economic Complexity

Applying complexity science to understand how productive capabilities accumulate, how economies diversify, and the role of knowledge in structural transformation.

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Regional Economics

Investigating regional disparities in productivity, employment, and development paths, with a focus on Brazilian states and municipalities.

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International Trade

Examining trade network structures, core-periphery patterns, and the dynamics of export diversification and sophistication in developing economies.

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Quantitative Methods

Combining network analysis, econometrics, and computational approaches to build rigorous empirical work in economics.

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Industrial Economics

Studying market structure, firm behavior, and industrial organization, with a focus on how industries evolve and shape productive transformation in developing economies.

Selected Publications

Full list on Google Scholar and Lattes.

2026

Economic complexity and local employment multipliers

with A.R. Queiroz, J.P. Romero · Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, v. 76, p. 20-43

Complexity Employment

1citations

2025

Economic complexity and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

with F. Silveira, J.P. Romero, A. Queiroz, A. Stein · World Development, v. 185, p. 106804

Complexity Environment

12citations

2024

Relatedness and regional economic complexity: good news for some, bad news for others

with A.R. Queiroz, J.P. Romero · Revista Economia da ANPEC, v. 25

Regional Economics Complexity

9citations

2024

Related industries, economic complexity, and regional diversification: an application for Brazilian microregions

with G. Britto, P. Amaral · Papers in Regional Science, v. 103, p. 100011

Regional Economics Complexity

31citations

2024

Complexity-based diversification strategies: a new method for ranking promising activities for regional diversification

with J.P. Romero, F. Silveira, G. Britto, F. Cimini, F.G. Jayme Jr. · Spatial Economic Analysis, v. 1, p. 1-24

Complexity Regional Economics

4citations

Teaching & Materials

Class notes, datasets, and code for students and researchers.

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Class Notes

Lecture notes and slides from undergraduate and graduate courses in economics, regional development, and quantitative methods.

Coming soon

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Datasets

Curated datasets on economic complexity, trade flows, and Brazilian regional economic indicators, ready for research and teaching.

GitHub

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Code & Notebooks

Python scripts and Jupyter notebooks for economic complexity calculations, network analysis, and spatial econometrics.

econcomplex