Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-l4dxg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-11T06:42:17.517Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Have Import Substitution Policies Either Precipitated or Aggravated the Debt Crisis?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Felipe Pazos
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the development policies applied to Latin American countries in the post-war period, particularly those designed to develop manufacturing production for the domestic market through tariff protection. The paper will try to find out whether such policies (1) brought about reasonably high rates of growth; (2) distorted the structure of domestic prices and hindered the later development of manufactures exports; (3) provoked persistent balance of payments disequilibria, thereby forcing the countries to borrow abroad in large quantities; and (4) weakened the countries' capacity to resume development in the future, once the current debt crisis is overcome.

Advancing conclusions, the first and fourth questions can be answered with a relatively high degree of confidence: inward-oriented policies promoted a high rate of growth during the three decades spanning 1950 to 1980, but narrowed the import coefficient to a degree that will force the countries to depend almost solely on export promotion to resume their development in the future.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , Winter 1985 , pp. 57 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) (1953) Analyses and Projections of Economic Development: An Introduction to the Techniques of Programming. New York, NY: United Nations, publication e/CN/12/363.Google Scholar
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) (1982) Economic and Social Progress Report: The External Sector. Washington, DC: IDB.Google Scholar
List, F. (1955) Sistema Nacional de Economía Política. Madrid, Spain: Aguilar.Google Scholar
Manoilesco, M. (1929) Theorie du Protectionisme. Paris, France: Marcel Giard.Google Scholar
Prébisch, R. (1949) “El Desarrollo Económico de México.” El Trimestre Económico (January-March).Google Scholar
Singer, H. (1950) “The Distribution of Gains between Investing and Borrowing Countries.” American Economic Review (Papers and Proceedings of the December 1949 Meeting) (May): 473–485.Google Scholar
Teitel, S. and Thoumi, F. (1986) “From Import Substitution to Exports: The Recent Manufacturing Export Experience of Argentina and Brazil. Economic Development and Cultural Change 34, 3 (April): forthcoming.Google Scholar
Tyler, W. (1983) “The Anti-Export Bias in Commercial Policies and Export Performance: Some Evidence from the Recent Brazilian Experience. Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 119: 97–108.Google Scholar
Urquidi, V. (1946) “El Progreso Económico de México.” El Trimestre Económico (January-March).Google Scholar
Viner, J. (1952) International Trade and Economic Development. New York, NY: The Free Press (Division of MacMillan and Company).Google Scholar