Portrait of the economist as a young man: Raúl Prebisch's evolving views on the business cycle and money, 1919-1949

Matías Vernengo and Esteban Perez Caldentey

Revista CEPAL, 2012

Abstract: This paper analyses Raúl Prebisch's lesser-known contributions to economic theory, related to the business cycle and heavily informed by the Argentine experience. His views of the cycle emphasize the common nature of the cycle in the centre and the periphery as one unified phenomenon. While his rejection of orthodoxy is less than complete, some elements of what would become a more Keynesian position are developed. In particular, there is a preoccupation with the management of the balance of payments and the need for capital controls as a macroeconomic management tool, well before Keynes and White's plans led to the Bretton Woods agreement. In the process it is clear that Prebisch developed several ideas that are still relevant for understanding cyclical fluctuations in the periphery and that he became more concerned with the ability to take advantage of cyclical booms to maintain sustained economic growth.

Date: 2012-04
Note: Includes bibliography
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://repositorio.cepal.org/handle/11362/11579

Related works:
Working Paper: Portrait of the Economist as a Young Man: Raúl Prebischs evolving views on the business cycle and money, 1919-1949 (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecr:col070:11579

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Revista CEPAL from Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Biblioteca CEPAL ().