  Research on productive structures has shown that economic complexity
conditions economic growth. However, little is known about which type of
complexity, e.g., export or industrial complexity, matters more for regional
economic growth in a large emerging country like Brazil. Brazil exports natural
resources and agricultural goods, but a large share of the employment derives
from services, non-tradables, and within-country manufacturing trade. Here, we
use a large dataset on Brazil's formal labor market, including approximately
100 million workers and 581 industries, to reveal the patterns of export
complexity, industrial complexity, and economic growth of 558 micro-regions
between 2003 and 2019. Our results show that export complexity is more evenly
spread than industrial complexity. Only a few -- mainly developed urban places
-- have comparative advantages in sophisticated services. Regressions show that
a region's industrial complexity is a significant predictor for 3-year growth
prospects, but export complexity is not. Moreover, economic complexity in
neighboring regions is significantly associated with economic growth. The
results show export complexity does not appropriately depict Brazil's knowledge
base and growth opportunities. Instead, promoting the sophistication of the
heterogeneous regional industrial structures and development spillovers is a
key to growth.
