The Contribution of Argentine Exports to the Economy, 1875-1929

SANDRA KUNTZ-FICKER; RAYES, AGUSTINA

The First Export Era Revisited. Reassessing its Contribution to Latin American Economies

Palgrave Macmillan

Año: 2017; p. 37 - 72

The performance of Argentine exports during the so-called ?First Globalization? is atopic widely studied in the historiography. Recently, not only has the interest in knowingabout the main goods and markets been relaunched (Cortés Conde, 2003; Bértola & Ocampo,El desarrollo económico de América Latina desde la Independencia, 2013; Míguez & Rayes,2014; Bulmer-Thomas, 2014), but also the concern to analyze the reliability of the statisticalsources for their study has developed (Tena-Junguito & Willebald, 2013; Rayes, 2015). Lessattention has been given to the link between the export sector and the Argentine economy, incontrast to research done in the 1960s and 1970s (Gallo, 1970; Gallo & Cortés Conde, 1973;Cortés Conde R. , 1974; 1985).Accordingly, the purpose of this chapter is to examine the contribution of exports toArgentine economic growth between 1875 and 1929 by constructing several indicators.2 Aswell as calculating which part of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and GDP growth wasgenerated by exports, we quantify the indirect contribution of the export sector analyzing thereturn value, the fiscal contribution, the purchasing power of exports, positive externalities,industrial linkages, and the use of modern energy. The new evidence gathered for thisendeavor is oriented to discuss some of the notions held by conventional interpretationsdealing with the trajectory and performance of the Argentine economy during the First ExportEra.