The rise and fall of economic development preoccupations in Argentina and the turn toward neoliberalism in the 1970s (original) (raw)

Swimming against the (Developmentalist) mainstream: the liberal economists in Argentina between 1955 and 1976

PSL Quarterly Review, 2019

We the study the main representatives of traditional liberalism in Argentina between 1955 and 1975. In those years a local reformulation of liberal ideas attempted to both rescue the 19th century liberal tradition and to incorporate some of the neoliberal ideas that had begun to gather strength at the international level. These ideas paved the way for the construction of new consensuses within liberal ranks. The most visible exponents of such thinking in this period were Federico Pinedo, Alvaro Alsogaray, Alberto Benegas Lynch, and Jose Martinez de Hoz. In this article we are interested in the action and rhetoric of these exponents of Postwar liberalism in Argentina, and we specifically assess the criticisms they deployed against the state-led industrialization model. JEL codes : B25, O54, O21

Equality or Growth: A 20th Century Argentine Dilemma

Revista De Historia Economica, 2009

Argentina's long term economic performance between 1880 and 2000 (convergence with the rich followed by divergence) can be understood in terms of the economic and political consequences of its peculiar factor endowments. Skewed endowments meant huge gains from trade during the First Globalization boom; but, conversely, disintegration of world commerce in the Depression was a heavier blow for such a naturally specialized economy. The extreme protectionism, characteristic of the post-war period, was related to the country's peculiar economic structure: comparative advantages in food production and disadvantages in (labor-intensive) manufacturing implied that closing the economy was a political winner, though it eventually hampered growth. The road to openness followed in the last quarter of the 20 th century would have meant, correspondingly, an increase in inequality. Attempts to moderate it through debt accumulation and exchange rate appreciation destabilized the economy and contributed further to Argentina's comparative decline.

The argentinean failure": an interpretation of economic evolution in the "Short 20th Century

Desarrollo Economico, 2006

This study reviews a representative though not an exhaustive set of representative explanations of the poor performance achieved by Argentina's economy between the Great War and the 1989 crisis. It analyzes the literature by dividing it in accordance with two different approaches: one that assumed that economic performance was conditioned by structural factors, and another that attributes it to decisions on economic policies and conjunctural circumstances. Regarding the firts approach, it highlights the importance of colonial legacies, the asymmetry of international relations, problems related to the formation of capital, and the flaws of the entrepreneurial class that led the industrialization process. Among the second approach, emphasis is laid on those who point to the lack of State intervention or the State's belated decision to intervene, those who hold the opposite view by stating that it was precisely because of State intervention that the economic parameters favorable to growth and development became distorted, those who point to problems about political and social institutions, and those who attribute poor performance to a series of citcumstancial processes. The last part of the study intends to underscore the role played in this process by the distance separating initial levels of development (aided by natural resources) and the levels of societal general development, chiefly in relation to the available human capital and to the quality of the institutions involved.

Rethinking development economics

Choice Reviews Online

Twelve years ago, when I was chief economist of the World Bank, I suggested that the major challenge to development economics was learning the lessons of the previous several decades: a small group of countries, mostly in Asia, but a few in other regions, had had phenomenal success, beyond anything that had been anticipated by economists; while many other countries had experienced slow growth, or even worse, stagnation and decline-inconsistent with the standard models in economics which predicted convergence. The successful countries had followed policies that were markedly different from those of the Washington Consensus, though they shared some elements in common; those policies had not brought high growth, stability, or poverty reduction. Shortly after I left the World Bank, the crisis in Argentina-which had been held up as the poster child of the country that had followed Washington Consensus policies-reinforced the doubts about that strategy. The global financial crisis, too, has cast doubt over the neoclassical paradigm in advanced industrial countries, and rightly so. Much of development economics had been viewed as asking how developing countries could successfully transition toward the kinds of market-oriented policy frameworks that came to be called "American style capitalism." The debate was not about the goal, but the path to that goal, with some advocating "shock therapy," while others focused on pacing and sequencing-a more gradualist tack. The global financial crisis has now raised questions about that model even for developed countries. In this short essay, I want to argue that the long-term experiences in growth and stability of both developed and less developed countries, as well as the deeper theoretical understanding of the strengths and limitations of market economies, provide support for a "new structural" approach to development-an approach

The difficult building of neodevelopmentalism in Argentina after the crisis of neoliberal reforms

The paper will explore the scope and limitations of the development pattern adopted in Argentina after the crisis of neoliberal reform. Starting in 2003, the Argentinean government took pain to take distance from the neoliberal blueprint and argued for a development strategy focused on production for both the domestic market and exports, social inclusion and an active economic and social intervention of the state. After a period of rapid growth and reversal of the dismal economic and social figures of the early 2000s, the contradictions of this 'neo-developmentalist' strategy have emerged as the period of prosperity, and the ability of the state to boost growth and address some critical social situations has strongly depended on the resources coming from large-scale extractive industries and the export of commodities. This has not only led to the emergence of the traditional bottlenecks of import substitution strategies but has also fuelled intense protests from communities affected by extractive industries. Questions arise about the economic and political sustainability of neo-developmentalism.