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Argentine trade policies in the XX century: 60 years of solitude

Author

Listed:
  • Irene Brambilla

    (Universidad Nacional de La Plata and NBER)

  • Sebastian Galiani

    (University of Maryland)

  • Guido Porto

    (Universidad Nacional de La Plata and NBER)

Abstract

At the turn of the last century, the Argentine economy was on a path to prosperity that never fully developed. International trade and trade policies are often identified as a major culprit. In this paper, we review the history of Argentine trade policy to uncover its exceptional features and to explore its contribution to the Argentine debacle. Our analysis tells a story of bad trade policies, rooted in distributional conflict and shaped by changes in constraints, that favored industry over agriculture in a country with a fundamental comparative advantage in agriculture. While the anti-export bias impeded productivity growth in agriculture, the import substitution strategy was not successful in promoting an efficient industrialization. In the end, Argentine growth never took-off.

Suggested Citation

  • Irene Brambilla & Sebastian Galiani & Guido Porto, 2018. "Argentine trade policies in the XX century: 60 years of solitude," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 27(1), pages 1-30, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:laecrv:v:27:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s40503-017-0050-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s40503-017-0050-9
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Rafael Di Tella & Juan Dubra, 2010. "Peronist Beliefs and Interventionist Policies," NBER Working Papers 16621, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Palazzo, Gabriel & Rapetti, Martín, 2023. "From macro to micro and macro back: Macroeconomic trade elasticities in a developing economy," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 223-252.
    3. Erhan Artuc & Irene Brambilla & Guido Porto, 2022. "Patterns of Labour Market Adjustment to Trade Shocks with Imperfect Capital Mobility," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(646), pages 2048-2074.
    4. Nauro F. Campos & Menelaos G. Karanasos & Michail Karoglou & Panagiotis Koutroumpis & Constantin Zopounidis & Apostolos Christopoulos, 2022. "Apocalypse now, apocalypse when? Economic growth and structural breaks in Argentina (1886–2003)," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(1), pages 3-32, January.
    5. Irene Brambilla & Guido Porto, 2018. "Diagnóstico y Visión de la Inserción Comercial Argentina en el Mundo," IIE, Working Papers 115, IIE, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    6. Campos, Luciano & Casas, Agustín, 2020. "Populism and income redistribution," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).

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