This paper investigates structural change in Argentina between 1900 and 1973. It has been argued that trade policy under import-substituting industrialization disfavoured agriculture and led to a “technological lag” in the sector, and that this explains agriculture’s relative decline during a period of rapid industrialization. I find that there is no technological lag to be found in the data and, moreover, that relative prices had no discernible effect on agricultural output. A three-by-three model based on these findings is developed in which structural change is caused by exogenous changes in factor endowments. A simulation of the model replicates the observed structural changes from the 1920s onwards, suggesting that the decline of agriculture and rise of manufacturing can be explained by population growth once the land frontier had been reached.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Oxford, Department of Economics in its series Economics Series Working Papers with number
437.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: