Banking and finance in Argentina in the period 1900-35

Leonard Nakamura and Carlos Zarazaga

No 01-7, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Abstract: From 1900 to 1935, Argentina evolved from an economy highly dependent on external, primarily British, finance to one more nearly self-sufficient. The authors examine the failure of domestic finance to adequately fill the void left by the decline of London and the breakdown of the world financial system in the interwar period, when neither the Buenos Aires Bolsa nor the private domestic banks developed rapidly enough to fully replace British investors as efficient channels for financing private investment. One consequence is that Argentine investable funds were increasingly concentrated in a single institution, the Banco de la Nacion Argentina (BNA), creating a lopsided financial structure that was vulnerable to rent seeking and to authoritarian capture. Nevertheless, several measures, including gold reserves, interest rates, money supply, bank credit, and the market capitalization of domestic corporations, attest to the very high level of financial development achieved by Argentina.

Keywords: Banks; and; banking; -; Argentina (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lam and nep-mfd
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Working Paper: Banking and finance in Argentina in the period 1900-35 (2001)
Working Paper: Banking and finance in Argentina in the period 1900–35 (2001)
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