IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5432.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the Costs of Inward-Looking Development: Historical Perspectives on Price Distortions, Growth, and Divergence in Latin American from 1930s - 1980s

Author

Listed:
  • Alan M. Taylor

Abstract

From the 1930s to the 1980s, economic policies in Latin America epitomized the inward-looking model of development. The model emerged in the Depression, and was later codified in unorthodox economic theories. Even though economic performance was seen as disappointing by the 1960s, the distortions of the regime were long lived, persisting and worsening into the 1970s and 1980s. I examine the costs of distortions and explore the structural differences between growth dynamics in Latin America and elsewhere. Distortions had pervasive and profound effects on many aspects of the growth process, and help explain divergent development in the region.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan M. Taylor, 1996. "On the Costs of Inward-Looking Development: Historical Perspectives on Price Distortions, Growth, and Divergence in Latin American from 1930s - 1980s," NBER Working Papers 5432, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5432
    Note: DAE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w5432.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. De Long, J. Bradford & Summers, Lawrence H., 1993. "How strongly do developing economies benefit from equipment investment?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 395-415, December.
    2. Valerie R. Bencivenga & Bruce D. Smith, 1991. "Financial Intermediation and Endogenous Growth," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(2), pages 195-209.
    3. Taylor, Alan M., 1994. "Tres fases del crecimiento económico argentino," Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 649-683, December.
    4. Segerstrom, Paul S, 1991. "Innovation, Imitation, and Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(4), pages 807-827, August.
    5. Gary S. Becker & Kevin M. Murphy & Robert Tamura, 1994. "Human Capital, Fertility, and Economic Growth," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition, pages 323-350, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Williamson Jeffrey G., 1995. "The Evolution of Global Labor Markets since 1830: Background Evidence and Hypotheses," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 141-196, April.
    7. Greenwood, Jeremy & Jovanovic, Boyan, 1990. "Financial Development, Growth, and the Distribution of Income," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 1076-1107, October.
    8. Easterly, William & Kremer, Michael & Pritchett, Lant & Summers, Lawrence H., 1993. "Good policy or good luck?: Country growth performance and temporary shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 459-483, December.
    9. Romer, Paul, 1993. "Idea gaps and object gaps in economic development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 543-573, December.
    10. Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew M. Warner, 1995. "Economic Convergence and Economic Policies," NBER Working Papers 5039, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Robert G. King & Ross Levine, 1993. "Finance and Growth: Schumpeter Might Be Right," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 108(3), pages 717-737.
    12. Robert M. Solow, 1956. "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(1), pages 65-94.
    13. Chenery, Hollis B., 1984. "Economic Structure and Performance," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 1, number 9780126800609 edited by Syrquin, Moshe & Taylor, Lance & Westphal, Larry E..
    14. Boyan Jovanovic & Rafael Rob, 1989. "The Growth and Diffusion of Knowledge," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 569-582.
    15. Casey B. Mulligan & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 1993. "Transitional Dynamics in Two-Sector Models of Endogenous Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 108(3), pages 739-773.
    16. J. Bradford De Long & Lawrence H. Summers, 1991. "Equipment Investment and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 106(2), pages 445-502.
    17. Alan M. Taylor, 1994. "Domestic Saving and International Capital Flows Reconsidered," NBER Working Papers 4892, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Barro, Robert J, 1990. "Government Spending in a Simple Model of Endogenous Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 103-126, October.
    19. Frankel, Jeffrey A. & Rose, Andrew K., 1996. "A panel project on purchasing power parity: Mean reversion within and between countries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1-2), pages 209-224, February.
    20. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    21. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David N. Weil, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 107(2), pages 407-437.
    22. Easterly, William & Rebelo, Sergio, 1993. "Fiscal policy and economic growth: An empirical investigation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 417-458, December.
    23. Alan J. Auerbach & Kevin A. Hassett & Stephen D. Oliner, 1994. "Reassessing the Social Returns to Equipment Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 109(3), pages 789-802.
    24. Abramovitz, Moses, 1986. "Catching Up, Forging Ahead, and Falling Behind," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(2), pages 385-406, June.
    25. Levine, Ross & Renelt, David, 1992. "A Sensitivity Analysis of Cross-Country Growth Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 942-963, September.
    26. Friedman, Milton, 1992. "Do Old Fallacies Ever Die?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(4), pages 2129-2132, December.
    27. De Gregorio, Jose, 1992. "Economic growth in Latin America," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 59-84, July.
    28. Alwyn Young, 1993. "Lessons from the East Asian NICs: A Contrarian View," NBER Working Papers 4482, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. Caballe, Jordi & Santos, Manuel S, 1993. "On Endogenous Growth with Physical and Human Capital," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(6), pages 1042-1067, December.
    30. De Long, J. Bradford, 1992. "Productivity Growth and Machinery Investment: A Long-Run Look, 1870–1980," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(2), pages 307-324, June.
    31. Feder, Gershon, 1983. "On exports and economic growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1-2), pages 59-73.
    32. Alwyn Young, 1991. "Learning by Doing and the Dynamic Effects of International Trade," NBER Working Papers 3577, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    33. De Long, J Bradford, 1988. "Productivity Growth, Convergence, and Welfare: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 1138-1154, December.
    34. Alwyn Young, 1991. "Learning by Doing and the Dynamic Effects of International Trade," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 106(2), pages 369-405.
    35. Mulligan, C. B. & Sala-i-Martin, X., 1997. "A labor income-based measure of the value of human capital: An application to the states of the United States," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 159-191, May.
    36. Alwyn Young, 1992. "A Tale of Two Cities: Factor Accumulation and Technical Change in Hong Kong and Singapore," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1992, Volume 7, pages 13-64, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    37. Ronald Findlay, 1978. "Relative Backwardness, Direct Foreign Investment, and the Transfer of Technology: A Simple Dynamic Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 92(1), pages 1-16.
    38. Quah, D., 1990. "Galton'S Fallacy And The Tests Of The Convergence Hypothesis," Working papers 552, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    39. Brander, James A & Dowrick, Steve, 1994. "The Role of Fertility and Population in Economic Growth: Empirical Results from Aggregate Cross-National Data," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-25.
    40. Moses Abramovitz, 1956. "Resource and Output Trends in the United States since 1870," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number abra56-1, August.
    41. Edwards, Sebastian, 1993. "Openness, Trade Liberalization, and Growth in Developing Countries," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 31(3), pages 1358-1393, September.
    42. Gary S. Becker & Robert J. Barro, 1988. "A Reformulation of the Economic Theory of Fertility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 103(1), pages 1-25.
    43. Roubini, Nouriel & Sala-i-Martin, Xavier, 1992. "Financial repression and economic growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 5-30, July.
    44. Alan M. Taylor, 1994. "Three Phases of Argentine Economic Growth," NBER Historical Working Papers 0060, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    45. Edwards, Sebastian, 1992. "Trade orientation, distortions and growth in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 31-57, July.
    46. Kormendi, Roger C. & Meguire, Philip G., 1985. "Macroeconomic determinants of growth: Cross-country evidence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 141-163, September.
    47. Moses Abramovitz, 1956. "Resource and Output Trends in the United States since 1870," NBER Chapters, in: Resource and Output Trends in the United States since 1870, pages 1-23, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    48. Alan M. Taylor, 1995. "Growth and Convergence in the Asia-Pacific Region: On the Role of Openness, Trade and Migration," NBER Working Papers 5276, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    49. Baumol, William J, 1986. "Productivity Growth, Convergence, and Welfare: What the Long-run Data Show," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 1072-1085, December.
    50. Ethier, Wilfred J, 1982. "National and International Returns to Scale in the Modern Theory of International Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 389-405, June.
    51. Robert J. Barro, 1994. "Democracy & Growth," NBER Working Papers 4909, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    52. Paul M. Romer, 1994. "The Origins of Endogenous Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 3-22, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Alan M. Taylor, 1995. "Growth and Convergence in the Asia-Pacific Region: On the Role of Openness, Trade and Migration," NBER Working Papers 5276, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Rensman, Marieke, 1996. "Economic growth and technological change in the long run : a survey of theoretical and empirical literature," Research Report 96C10, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    3. repec:dgr:rugsom:96c10 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Nazrul Islam, 2003. "What have We Learnt from the Convergence Debate?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(3), pages 309-362, July.
    5. de la Fuente, Angel, 1997. "The empirics of growth and convergence: A selective review," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 23-73, January.
    6. Diaz-Bautista, Alejandro, 2002. "The role of telecommunications infrastructure and human capital: Mexico´s economic growth and convergence," ERSA conference papers ersa02p102, European Regional Science Association.
    7. Celal Kucuker, 2003. "Türkiye Ýktisat Kongresi Büyüme Stratejileri Çalýþma Grubu," Working Papers 2003/5, Turkish Economic Association.
    8. Gould, David M. & Gruben, William C., 1996. "The role of intellectual property rights in economic growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 323-350, March.
    9. Durlauf, Steven N. & Quah, Danny T., 1999. "The new empirics of economic growth," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 235-308, Elsevier.
    10. William Easterly & Ross Levine, 2002. "It´s Not Factor Accumulation: Stylized Facts and Growth Models," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Norman Loayza & Raimundo Soto & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Editor) (ed.),Economic Growth: Sources, Trends, and Cycles, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 3, pages 061-114, Central Bank of Chile.
    11. Long, N.V. & Wong, K.Y., 1996. "Endogenous Growth and International Trade: A Survey," Working Papers 96-07, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
    12. Evans, Paul, 1996. "Using cross-country variances to evaluate growth theories," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 20(6-7), pages 1027-1049.
    13. Alan M. Taylor, 1999. "Latin America and Foreign Capital in the Twentieth Century: Economics, Politics, and Institutional Change," NBER Working Papers 7394, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Johannes Fedderke, 2001. "Growth and institutions," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(6), pages 645-670.
    15. Valentinyi, Ákos, 1995. "Endogén növekedéselmélet. Áttekintés [Endogeneous theory of growth: a review]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(6), pages 582-594.
    16. Sefa Awaworyi Churchill & Mehmet Ugur & Siew Ling Yew, 2017. "Does Government Size Affect Per-Capita Income Growth? A Hierarchical Meta-Regression Analysis," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 93(300), pages 142-171, March.
    17. Bos, J.W.B. & Economidou, C. & Koetter, M. & Kolari, J.W., 2010. "Do all countries grow alike?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 113-127, January.
    18. Krüger Jens J. & Cantner Uwe & Hanusch Horst, 2003. "Explaining International Productivity Differences / Erklärung internationaler Produktivitätsunterschiede," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 223(6), pages 659-679, December.
    19. Andrew Bernard & Márcio Gomes Pinto Garcia, 1997. "Public and private provision of infrastructure and economic development," Textos para discussão 375, Department of Economics PUC-Rio (Brazil).
    20. Stefania Villa, 2005. "Determinants of growth in Italy. A time series analysis," Quaderni DSEMS 24-2005, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche, Matematiche e Statistiche, Universita' di Foggia.
    21. Jonathan Temple, 1999. "The New Growth Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 112-156, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N1 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations

    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:nbr:nberwo:5432. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.