An unlikely Phoenix: The recovery of Argentina’s monetary and financial system from its ashes in the 2000s and its lessons

The study discusses the recovery of the Argentine financial system after the crisis of the so called convertibility regime of the 1990s. The Argentine macroeconomic regime established in 1991 and based on the hard peg of the peso to the dollar at a 1 to 1 parity ended in a multiple crisis in 2001–2. Beyond the default on the public debt, the crisis also involved the breakdown of the domestic financial system, and an almost complete isolation of the country from the international financial markets as a consequence of the default. Under such a deep crisis and the consequent uncertainty, the recovery of the solvency of the financial institutions was an almost insurmountable enterprise. However, with a gradualist approach (contrary to the advice of the International Monetary Fund) and a degree of “regulatory forbearance,” the financial and monetary authorities were able to recover the health of the financial system, which became much more resilient to shocks, even if its development has been very slow and, as a consequence, the contribution of domestic credit to the economic expansion of the 2000s can be considered almost negligible.     

The concise economic history of Portugal – a comprehensive guide

Most research on British business in Latin America has concentrated on the free-standing companies, such as the railways, which characterised British investment before 1914. Apart from Royal Dutch Shell, the most important new British investments thereafter were manufacturing companies, which steadily increased their presence in the region. Some began to arrive before 1914, but several more made significant investments between the wars, especially in Argentina and Brazil, with a further wave of new investment after 1945. This paper utilises corporate archives, as well as those of the British government and Bank of England, to investigate the financial aspects of their growth. While the provision of finance for fixed investments and working capital was relatively straightforward before World War II, thereafter it became more difficult due to government regulation on both sides of the Atlantic, leading to ingenious solutions to overcome financial challenges.     

The Limits of Pension Privatization: Lessons from Argentine Experience

The paper studies the operation of the mixed pension system established in Argentina in 1994. It points to the limitations that the new system has encountered to achieve some of the most important objectives of pension policy and pension reform. The analysis looks at the mechanisms affecting pension system performance, with particular attention to the way in which the new pension rules have interacted with the local macroeconomic, social, and political context. The empirical analysis of this experience is oriented to provide lessons for Argentina’s future reforms, as well as for many Latin American countries with similar pension arrangements.     

Institutionalism,Planning, and the Current Crisis

This article originated in a shock of recognition. In the second volume of his discourse on “Civilization and Capitalism,” Fernand Braudel muses on the “eclecticism” of “the most advanced kind of capitalism”: “As if the characteristic advantage of standing at the commanding heights of the economy … consisted precisely of not having to confine oneself to a single choice, of being able, as today’s businessmen would put it, to keep one’s options open.”¹ My colleagues and I work as venture capitalists and as investment bankers of a specialized kind, engaged in raising capital to support the growth of technologybased companies and in realizing liquidity for their founding investors—often ourselves—by managing public offerings of their shares or by merging them into much larger companies. A primary virtue of our practice is the opportunity to choose with broad discretion where to commit our own and our clients’ capital across what Braudel calls “the differential geography ofprofit.”²     

阿根廷农产品在中国市场现状:竞争力与动态增长

随着中国农业逐步对外开放和农产品对外贸易快速增长,中国正在成为一个对世界市场具有重要影响的农产品贸易大国。近年来,中阿农产品贸易迅速发展,阿根廷在短短的几年内已成为中国的重要的农产品进口国。文章使用恒定市场份额模型来分析阿根廷农产品在中国市场的表现及竞争状况和阿根廷土地密集型产品动态增长的原因。     

Urban heritage,gentrification, and tourism in Riverwest and El Abasto

Heritage has played a pivotal role in configuring the sustainable economies of many communities. However, if the process is not duly planned, serious problems may surface. Although the adoption of a new heritage and heritage tourism has been broadly examined by tourism-related scholars, less attention has been given to the notion of gentrification as formulated in social geography. What would be interesting to debate here, beyond the Marxist logic, is to what extent heritage is not only an invented construction, but also how it regulates conflicts or subordinates other more reactionary social movements as art. Comparing two neighbourhoods, Riverwest and Abasto, shows two alternative effects of heritage construction. One refers to the fact that art does not always preserve the structure of economic forces; the other conceptualizes patrimony and heritage as justifying material asymmetries.     

Multinational Corporations,Property Rights,and Legitimization Strategies: US Investors in the Argentine and Peruvian Oil Industries in the Twentieth Century

Multinational corporations in the extractive sector have historically faced challenges to their property rights, particularly in oil. International business scholars argue that firms can decrease these challenges by approaching domestic legitimating actors or seeking home government support. Through a study of the operations of Standard Oil of New Jersey in Peru and Argentina in the twentieth century, we find that these legitimating strategies can backfire due to two main elements: first, the multinational might approach actors with a different agenda from those defining, delineating, and enforcing property rights. Second, host countries can use home government support to multinationals to delegitimise foreign firms' operations.