IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ecr/col070/40063.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Going through the labyrinth: the political economy of Argentina’s abandonment of the gold standard (1929-1933)

Author

Listed:
  • Gerchunoff, Pablo
  • Machinea, José Luis

Abstract

This article is the short but crucial history of four years of transition in a monetary and exchange-rate regime that culminated in 1933 with the final abandonment of the gold standard in Argentina. That process involved decisions made at critical junctures at which the government authorities had little time to deliberate and against which they had no analytical arsenal, no technical certainties and few political convictions. The objective of this study is to analyse those “decisions” at seven milestone moments, from the external shock of 1929 to the submission to Congress of a bill for the creation of the central bank and a currency control regime characterized by multiple exchange rates. The new regime that this reordering of the Argentine economy implied would remain in place, in one form or another, for at least a quarter of a century.

Suggested Citation

  • Gerchunoff, Pablo & Machinea, José Luis, 2015. "Going through the labyrinth: the political economy of Argentina’s abandonment of the gold standard (1929-1933)," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), December.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecr:col070:40063
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repositorio.cepal.org/handle/11362/40063
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eichengreen, Barry & Sachs, Jeffrey, 1985. "Exchange Rates and Economic Recovery in the 1930s," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(4), pages 925-946, December.
    2. Ronald A. Shearer & Carolyn Clark, 1984. "Canada and the Interwar Gold Standard, 1920-35: Monetary Policy without a Central Bank," NBER Chapters, in: A Retrospective on the Classical Gold Standard, 1821-1931, pages 277-310, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Ronald Findlay & Kevin H. O'Rourke, 2007. "Introduction to Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium," Introductory Chapters, in: Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium, Princeton University Press.
    4. Ronald Findlay & Kevin H. O'Rourke, 2007. "Power and Plenty: Trade, War and the World Economy in the Second Millennium (Preface)," Trinity Economics Papers tep0107, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
    5. Elías Salama, 2000. "La Argentina y el abandono del patrón oro," Department of Economics, Working Papers 028, Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    6. Eichengreen, Barry & Flandreau, Marc, 2009. "The rise and fall of the dollar (or when did the dollar replace sterling as the leading reserve currency?)," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(3), pages 377-411, December.
    7. Ronald Findlay & Kevin H. O'Rourke, 2007. "Preface to Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium," Introductory Chapters, in: Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium, Princeton University Press.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Martin Ellison & Sang Seok Lee & Kevin Hjortshøj O'Rourke, 2024. "The Ends of 27 Big Depressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(1), pages 134-168, January.
    2. Martin Ellison & Sang Seok Lee & Kevin Hjortshøj O’Rourke, 2020. "The Ends of 30 Big Depressions," Economics Series Working Papers 896, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Miguel Almunia & Agustín Bénétrix & Barry Eichengreen & Kevin H. O’Rourke & Gisela Rua, 2010. "From Great Depression to Great Credit Crisis: similarities, differences and lessons [Germany: Guns, butter, and economic miracles]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 25(62), pages 219-265.
    2. Nicholas Crafts & Peter Fearon, 2010. "Lessons from the 1930s Great Depression," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 26(3), pages 285-317, Autumn.
    3. Michele Fratianni & Francesco Marchionne, 2011. "The Limits to Integration," Chapters, in: Miroslav N. Jovanović (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Integration, Volume I, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Ferreira, Pedro Cavalcanti & Pessôa, Samuel & dos Santos, Marcelo Rodrigues, 2016. "Globalization And The Industrial Revolution," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 643-666, April.
    5. Roger R. Betancourt, 2013. "Should the U.S. Lift the Cuban Embargo? Yes; It Already Has; and It Depends!," Annual Proceedings, The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, vol. 23.
    6. Alejandro Ayuso‐Díaz & Antonio Tena‐Junguito, 2020. "Trade in the shadow of power: Japanese industrial exports in the interwar years," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(3), pages 815-843, August.
    7. Maurice Obstfeld, 2021. "Globalization and nationalism: Retrospect and prospect," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(4), pages 675-690, October.
    8. Kenneth S. Chan & Jean-Pierre Laffargue, 2014. "The Growth and Decline of the Modern Sector and the Merchant Class in Imperial China," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 13-28, February.
    9. Daniel Barbezat, 2011. "The Economic History of European Growth," Chapters, in: Gail M. Hoyt & KimMarie McGoldrick (ed.), International Handbook on Teaching and Learning Economics, chapter 51, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Leticia Arroyo Abad & Nuno Palma, 2020. "The Fruits of El Dorado: The Global Impact of American Precious Metals," Working Papers 0179, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    11. Bonfatti, Roberto & O'Rourke, Kevin Hjortshøj, 2014. "Growth, Import Dependence and War," CEPR Discussion Papers 10073, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Gino Gancia & Giacomo A M Ponzetto & Jaume Ventura, 2022. "Globalization and Political Structure," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 1276-1310.
    13. Roberto Bonfatti & Kevin Hjortshøj O'Rourke, 2018. "Growth, Import Dependence, and War," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(614), pages 2222-2257, September.
    14. Baffigi, Alberto & Bontempi, Maria Elena & Felice, Emanuele & Golinelli, Roberto, 2015. "The changing relationship between inflation and the economic cycle in Italy: 1861–2012," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 53-70.
    15. Broadberry, Stephen & Gardner, Leigh, 2016. "Economic Development In Africa And Europe: Reciprocal Comparisons," Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 11-37, March.
    16. Alessandro Olper & Jan Fałkowski & Johan Swinnen, 2014. "Political Reforms and Public Policy: Evidence from Agricultural and Food Policies," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 28(1), pages 21-47.
    17. Prados de la Escosura, Leandro & Rodríguez-Caballero, C. Vladimir, 2022. "War, pandemics, and modern economic growth in Europe," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    18. Richard E. Baldwin, 2011. "Multilateralising Regionalism: Spaghetti Bowls as Building Blocks on the Path to Global Free Trade," Chapters, in: Miroslav N. Jovanović (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Integration, Volume I, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Raúl Serrano & Vicente Pinilla, 2014. "New directions of trade for the agri-food industry: a disaggregated approach for different income countries, 1963–2000," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 23(1), pages 1-22, December.
    20. Kevin H. O'Rourke, Leandro Prados de la Escosura and Guilllaume Daudin, 2008. "Trade and Empire, 1700-1870," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp249, IIIS.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecr:col070:40063. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Biblioteca CEPAL (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eclaccl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.