The Crisis in Industrial Structure in Argentina: Lessons for Development Policy and Practice (original) (raw)

Fragmented State in a Neo-Developmental Experience: Examining Limits in Argentine Industrial Policy

Journal of Economics Issues, 2023

At the beginning of this new century, the “pink tide” of neo-developmental reactions to neoliberalism repositioned the state in development processes in Latin America. However, state leadership in countries like Argentina showed clear limitations to implement a consistent industrialization policy that contributes to structural change. An important limitation and insufficiently studied is the institutional-organizational dimension of state-building relative to the phenomenon of state fragmentation, which reduces state capacity and coherence amid wicked problems such as the structural change. Focused on the recent Argentine experience, the work shows that without a real hierarchy and decision-making capacity of the organizations involved in industrial policy, strategic planning processes become incapable to face the logic of state fragmentation. Official documents were analyzed, and interviews were conducted with national officials of the Ministry of Industry (2009–2015) and the implementation of the 2020 Industrial Strategic Plan.

Argentine Industrialization: A Critique of the Liberal and Dependentist Schools

Research in Political Economy, 2016

We aim to analyze the early trajectory of Argentine industry from the perspective of uneven and combined development. Argentine integration into the world market based on the export of agricultural goods had not neglected industrial development. At first, Argentine industry benefited from its late emergence and rapidly followed the path of leading countries' manufactures. But initial advantage soon turned into a liability. The emergence of large-scale industry required expanded markets that were already occupied by older and stronger competitors. The 1930 crisis AU:2 and the impact of the Second World War aggravated this problem. Attempts to remedy the situation À an export-led industrialization scheme and an internal-market-oriented economy À failed successively. We study this process through the analysis of Argentine industrial chambers' journals, reports from the United States Department of Foreign Trade and Argentine official governmental documents. We find that the export-led industrialization project failed because of the weakness of Argentine industries and not because of economic nationalism. That was the outcome of the previous failure of liberal projects and of the international constraints imposed by the Second World War and its aftermath. During this later period of internal-market-oriented economy, the gap between Argentine and international productivity widened. This paper presents an innovative interpretation that transcends liberal and nationalistic explanations and serves as a case study of the implications of uneven and combined development. A state manages relations (a) between various fractions of its national bourgeoisie; (b) between it and other social classes; and (c) between its 250 EDUARDO SARTELLI AND MARINA KABAT 1 3 5 7

Argentina’s Industrial Specialization Regime: New-generation industrial policy, or merely a transfer of resources?

CEPAL Review, 1999

The combination of rapidly increasing trade openness with sharp exchange-rate appreciation formed the context in which Argentine industry had to carry out its production restructuring process from 1991 on. The inability of the spontaneous market forces to spark off this process led the Argentine government to adopt a number of measures designed to correct the problem of relative prices and further the restructuring process through fiscal means. In this context, the Industrial Specialization Regime (ISR) was established with the main objective of promoting export specialization by industrial firms. This regime was based on a subsidy for incremental exports which took the form of access at preferential tariff rates to the importation of goods similar to those exported or forming part of a given production chain of complex goods. The aim of the present article is to make a theoretical and empirical analysis of this policy instrument (in its dual dimension of restructuring policy and export subsidy), examining its underlying theoretical bases, questions relating to its design, application and control, and finally, its effects on the industrial sector.

Structural change trajectories and industrial policy approaches: A proposal based on the Argentine experience

ECLAC Books, 2016

ECLAC aims to provide and facilitate alternative forums for thought and critical thinking in which Latin American academics, economists, politicians and intellectuals can discuss the underpinnings and progress of neostructuralism, heterodox economic currents in Latin America and the Caribbean, and implications for the design, formulation and evaluation of public policies. One of our most cherished aspirations is to share theoretical and conceptual advances in neostructuralism with new generations of economists and political and social scientists, in the hope that they in turn will enrich Latin American development thinking.

Industrial Policy in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico: a Comparative Approach

Revue Interventions économiques. Papers in Political Economy, 2017

Latin America has experienced a significant transformation in recent years. Despite some of the countries had major economic and social crisis at the end of the twentieth century, between 2003 and 2008 the region has experienced its most remarkable expansionary period since the 1970s. One of the new features registered during the period was the increase in the manufacturing sector where industrial policy combined traditional instruments to promote investment with other tools directed towards fostering innovation and technological modernization. At the same time, still using instruments and horizontal programs, in many countries there was a greater emphasis on the implementation of targeted and selective policies and to articulate the various instruments into a more general framework of productive development planning. The aim of this paper is to analyse the evolution of recent industrial policies (IPs) and their outcomes in four Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. To do this, we will focus on the objectives and tools of IPs since 2003, their differences vis-à-vis those followed in the 1990s, and their changes throughout the period 2003-2015. We will also study the similarities and differences in national approaches depending on the macroeconomic cycles and the dynamic of the balance of payments, the specialization profiles and the strategies of development.

The manufacturing sector in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. Transformation and challenges in the Industrial Core of Latin America

Palgrave MacMillian, Palgrave Studies in Latin America heterodox economics , 2019

After the hegemony of neoliberalism and the application of the Washington Consensus recommendations, actively supported by International Monetary Fund and the World Bank during the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, Latin America experienced strong political changes that led to a period of sustained growth (annual growth rates above 4% from 2003 to 2013). In that context, one of the most significant characteristics was the outstanding performance of the manufacturing sector. However, it should be noted that industrial development in Latin American countries differs significantly among countries, and it is highly concentrated on the performance of the three most important economies of the region, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, which on average from 1960 to the present have generated 75% of the manufacturing value added. The aim of the book is to analyze the recent performance of the manufacturing sector in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, in order to account for the true possibilities of achieving economic development based on industrialization. In order to do this, we analyze the historical evolution of the industrial sector of Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico since the import substitution industrialization stage, the economic impacts of the process of deindustrialization in the last quarter of the twentieth century during the rise of neoliberal policies, as well as the main transformations registered during the first decades of the twenty-first century when a reindustrialization process was registered. Also, the book studies the existence (or lack) of structural change in the economy, its level of technological development, economic concentration and evolution of income distribution, as well as the degree of external dependence and international integration that the different industrial sectors of the countries have.