"The argentinean failure": an interpretation of economic evolution in the "Short 20th Century"

this study reviews a representative though not an exhaustive set of representative explanations of the poor performance achieved by argentina？s economy between the great war and the 1989 crisis. it analyzes the literature by dividing it in accordance with two different approaches: one that assumed that economic performance was conditioned by structural factors, and another that attributes it to decisions on economic policies and conjunctural circumstances. regarding the firts approach, it highlights the importance of colonial legacies, the asymmetry of international relations, problems related to the formation of capital, and the flaws of the entrepreneurial class that led the industrialization process. among the second approach, emphasis is laid on those who point to the lack of state intervention or the state？s belated decision to intervene, those who hold the opposite view by stating that it was precisely because of state intervention that the economic parameters favorable to growth and development became distorted, those who point to problems about political and social institutions, and those who attribute poor performance to a series of citcumstancial processes. the last part of the study intends to underscore the role played in this process by the distance separating initial levels of development (aided by natural resources) and the levels of societal general development, chiefly in relation to the available human capital and to the quality of the institutions involved.