Understanding the business cycle in Latin America: Prebisch's contributions

1 May 2011 | Publication

Understanding the business cycle in Latin America: Prebisch's contributions

- Author: Pérez Caldentey, Esteban; Vernengo, Matías
- Publication corporate author (Institutional author): NU. CEPAL. Subsede de México
- Physical description: 57 páginas.
- Publisher: ECLAC
- UN symbol (Signature): LC/MEX/L.1011
- Date: 1 May 2011
- ISBN: 9789211217605

Abstract

This paper analyzes Raúl Prebisch's less familiar contributions to economic theory, related to the business cycle, and heavily informed by the Argentinean experience. His views of the cycle emphasize the common nature of the cycle in the center and the Latin American periphery as one unified phenomenon. While his rejection of orthodoxy is less than complete, some elements of what would become a more Keynesian position are developed. In particular, a preoccupation with the management of the balance of payments and the need for capital controls as a macroeconomic management tool, considerably before Keynes and White's plans led to the Bretton Woods agreement. In the process it is clear that Prebisch developed several ideas that are still relevant to understand cyclical fluctuations in Latin America and the periphery in general, and became more concerned with the capacity of taking advantage of cyclical booms to maintain sustained economic growth

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