"Argentinian economics: from a state-discipline to a governmental tool (1945-2001)"

HEREDIA, MARIANA

Budapest

Conferencia; International conference: The social sciences since 1945 in East and West : Continuities, Institutionalization and Internationalization; 2015

Central European University

Economics is a strange discipline among social sciences: with similar beginnings and a strong state-centred development, it separated from neighbour social sciences to become the most theoretical and methodological unified discipline and the most diversified expertise among SSH. By the 1940s and 1950's, as most social sciences in Latin America, economics has grown up at other disciplines' universities to become an independent profession aiming to support State intervention for industrialization and redistribution. As well as for sociology and demography, undergraduate and graduate degrees were created in public universities; public research centres and specific reviews were founded to produce and diffuse economic knowledge; many public institutional settings (the Central and other public banks, planning and regulating departments) recruited economists. Even if private institutions and foreign founding followed and encouraged these experiences, the State was by far the most prestigious space for economics' formation and professional exercise in Argentina. By the end of the XX century, the situation was different. Argentinian economists showed a strong integration to international networks, have a diversified source of learning and offer their expertise to a large number of demanders. After a strong controversy between Keynesian and Monetarists -which was held in academic and public arenas-, several monetarist scholars advised the last military dictatorship's government (1976-1983) and collaborated to introduce deep changes in Argentinian economy. This process was accompanied by a violent persecution of dissidents, among them public universities and research centres. Since them, economics flourished in private institutions, strengthened its ties to international networks and provided advise to several organizations. Using archives (university statistics, long-term press analysis) and 60 in depth interviews to different generations of economists, this paper reconstructs the history of Argentinian economics from a Nation-State centred discipline into an International-Private governmental-centred expertise.