Table of contents

Argentina poses a challenge to economists, economic historians, political scientists, and other concerned with the interrelationship of political and economic forces in developing nations. Although possessed of most of the attributes generally thought necessary for rapid and self-sustaining development, her economy has barely kept up with the population increase, and living standards of large segments of the population have not advanced. The causes of this paradox have never been adequately explained. Ferrer interprets the economic stagnation of Argentina in historical terms, tracing the evolution of the country's economy through four separate stages, beginning with the colonial era in the sixteenth century. Most attention is given to the period of "nonintegrated industrial economy," from 1930 to the present. According to Ferrer, modern Argentina was formed in the second half of the nineteenth century, when the country was integrated into the world economy as a large producer and exporter of agricultural products. The great influx of immigrants and foreign capital led to a rapid disintegration of the traditional society, which had been composed of isolated regional economies with a low level of economic and social development. The Pampa area, an "open space" that had been largely uninhabited, became the nucleus of the subsequent expansion because of its rich land resources and humid and temperate climate. The dislocation of the international economy after the world economic crisis of the 1930's and the rigidity of the Argentine agricultural economy, confronted the country with need to industrialize and diversify its economic structure. Some progress has been made along this road, but Ferrer attributes Argentina's postwar difficulties to the lack of proper answers to the problems of an agricultural economy in transition to a modern industrial society. The author relates economic data to the broader social and political issues. He forsees a definitive confrontation between two social and economic forces: one favoring maintenance of the status quo, the other advocating an enlightened policy of basic industrial growth. The outcome of this confrontation will have a profound impact on the future of Argentina and, indeed, all Latin America. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1967.

The "Argentine disappointment"—why Argentina persistently failed to achieve sustained economic stability during the twentieth century—is an issue that has mystified scholars for decades. In Straining the Anchor, Gerardo della Paolera and Alan M. Taylor provide many of the missing links that help explain this important historical episode. Written chronologically, this book follows the various fluctuations of the Argentine economy from its postrevolutionary volatility to a period of unprecedented prosperity to a dramatic decline from which the country has never fully recovered. The authors examine in depth the solutions that Argentina has tried to implement such as the Caja de Conversión, the nation's first currency board which favored a strict gold-standard monetary regime, the forerunner of the convertibility plan the nation has recently adopted. With many countries now using—or seriously contemplating—monetary arrangements similar to Argentina's, this important and persuasive study maps out one of history's most interesting monetary experiments to show what works and what doesn't.

Why has Argentina suffered so much political and economic instability? How could Argentina, once one of the wealthiest countries in the world, failed to meet its potential over decades? What lessons can we take from Argentina's successes and failures? Argentina’s economy is - irresistibly - fascinating. Argentina's economic history - its crises and its triumphs cannot be explained in purely economic terms. Argentina's economic history can only be explained in the context of conflicts of interest, of politics, war and peace, boom and bust. Argentina's economic history is also intertwined with ideological struggles over the ideal society and the on-going struggle of ideas. The book comprises two distinct components: an economic history of Argentina from the Spanish colonial period to 1990, followed by a narrative by Domingo Cavallo on the last 25 years of reform and counter reform. Domingo Cavallo has been at the centre of Argentina's economic and political debates for 40 years. He was one of the longest serving cabinet members since the return of democracy in 1983. He is uniquely qualified to help the reader make the connection between historical and current events through all these prisms. His daughter, Sonia Cavallo Runde, is an economist specialized on public policy that currently teaches the politics of development policy. The two Cavallos offer academics and students of economics and finance a long form case study. This book also seeks to offer researchers and policymakers around the world with relevant lessons and insights to similar problems from the Argentine experience.

In this work, Roberto Cortés Conde describes and explains the decline of the Argentine economy in the 20th century, its evolution, and its consequences. At the beginning of the century, the economy grew at a sustained rate, a modern transport system united the country, a massive influx of immigrants populated the land and education expanded, leading to a dramatic fall in illiteracy. However, by the second half of the century, growth not only stalled, but a dramatic reversal occurred, and the perspectives in the median and long term turned negative, and growth eventually collapsed. This work of historical analysis defines the most important problems faced by the Argentine economy. Some of these problems were fundamental, while others occurred without being properly considered, but in their entirety, Cortés Conde demonstrates how they had a deleterious effect on the country.

A comprehensive balanced portrait of the factors affecting economic development in Latin America, first published in 2003.

The author of "The Chastening" returns with this definitive account of the most spectacular economic meltdown of modern times as he exposes dangerous flaws of the global financial system.

In mid-twentieth-century Latin America there was a strong consensus between Left and Right—Communists working under the directives of the Third International, nationalists within the military interested in fostering industrialization, and populists—about the need to break away from the colonial legacies of the past and to escape from the constraints of the international capitalist system. Even though they disagreed about the desired end state, Argentines of all political stripes could agree on the need for economic independence and national sovereignty, which would be brought about through the efforts of a national bourgeoisie. James Brennan and Marcelo Rougier aim to provide a political history of this national bourgeoisie in this book. Deploying an eclectic methodology combining aspects of the “new institutionalism,” the “new economic history,” Marxist political economy, and deep research in numerous, rarely consulted archives into what they dub the “new business history,” the authors offer the first thorough, empirically based history of the national bourgeoisie’s peak association, the Confederación General Económica (CGE), and of the Argentine bourgeoisie’s relationship with the state. They also investigate the relationship of the bourgeoisie to Perón and the Peronist movement by studying the history of one industrial sector, the metalworking industry, and two regional economies—one primarily industrial, Córdoba, and another mostly agrarian, Chaco—with some attention to a third, Tucumán, a cane-cultivating and sugar-refining region sharing some features of both. While spanning three decades, the book concentrates most on the years of Peronist government, 1946–55 and 1973–76.

This book offers new topics and new perspectives on the economic history of Argentina before the 1930 Depression. It focuses on the evolution of early industrialization in a country primarily associated with cattle-ranching and agriculture, and single-mindedly characterized as a case of a successful export economy. Taking an original approach, the book cross-examines traditional economic issues such as production and finances, and new cultural patterns, such as consumption, the role of women, paternalism, and ideology. The first years of Argentina’s industrialization, from the 1870s to the 1920s, coincided with a time of great innovation, a brisk turn from tradition, and quick modernization. This book shows that industry not only helped Argentina’s economy along, but spearheaded its modernization. It challenges the long-lasting “canonical version” that industry was a victim of a capital market and a state extremely hostile to manufacturing. Access to financing for industrial endeavors was much easier than previously thought, while the state supported industry through tariffs.