National Cases of Industrialization: Argentina

MARCELO ROUGIER; JUAN ODIISIO

The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics

Palgrave Macmillan

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2021; p. 1 - 15

This chapter presents the long-term evolution of Argentine industrialization. We begin by distinguishing the fundamental characteristics that the manufacturing sector adopted when it was formed in the late nineteenth century. Then, we study its maturation, which began in the interwar period with the arrival of significant foreign investment and accelerated between the crisis of 1929 and the Second World War with the start of the import substitution strategy. From then until 1975, Argentine industrialization experienced its heyday, with the advance towards basic industry (aluminium, iron and steel, chemicals, oil, etc.). This took place with the consolidation of the local actors linked to this process, both private and public companies, and the rise of public policies and institutions designated to foster industrial development. Finally, the last 45 years saw a retraction in the country?s industrial capacities, which in successive stages lost productive complexity, became heavily foreignized and increasingly focused in sectors based on the processing of raw materials (food and energy) or with special regimes of protection, such as automobiles. Argentina?s deindustrialization was deeper than in other countries, therefore the problems and limitations that we identify in the long-term Argentine manufacturing trajectory are still in force and its overcoming remain a pending goal of the twenty-first century.