Introduction

JUAN EDUARDO SANTARCANGELO; ORLANDO JUSTO; PAUL COONEY

Latin America after the financial crisis

Palgrave Macmillian

Año: 2016; p. 1 - 4

The global crisis is considered by many economists, scholars, andpolicymakers to be the worst crisis since the Great Depression of the1930s. It resulted in the threat of total collapse of many large financialinstitutions, the bailout of banks and other businesses by nationalgovernments, and significant downturns in stock markets around theworld. However, the economic and social impact of the crisis was notthe same in all countries and regions.Several economic analyses have emerged that attempt to accountfor the main features of the crisis, highlighting the contribution madeby different heterodox schools of thought. These approaches, amongwhich we can underline the Post-Keynesians and various Marxianinterpretations, not only provide strong criticisms of the dominantneoclassical theory, but also propose conclusive analyses to understandthe complexities of the current social reality.One of the regions that has a longstanding tradition of heterodoxeconomics and has been less affected by the global financial crisisis Latin America. The countries of this region were able to achieveannual growth rates of around 4% for the period 2003?2013, 48%higher than the average annual GDP growth rate registered in theperiod 1990?2002. 1 The aim of this book is to explain how the globalfinancial crisis affected Latin America, analyze the main transmissionchannels that helped the crisis to spread in the region, and understandwhy this one was not as severe as other crises have been in the past.The purpose of this book is to combine different heterodox traditionswith analysis of how the global crisis affected Latin America.To do that, we have selected a comprehensive group of countries including?Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexicoand Venezuela?which accounts for 80% of the GDP of the region.The goal is to understand the impact of the crisis on the accumulationpath of the region without losing sight of the particularitiesof each country, and the way their different administrations havedealt with the crisis.