Raúl Prebisch

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Raúl Prebisch (born April 17, 1901 in San Miguel de Tucumán , † April 29, 1986 in Santiago de Chile ) was an Argentine development economist .

life and work

Raúl Prebisch was born as one of eight children to Albin Theodor Prebisch, a German immigrant and farmer from Colmnitz in Saxony, and his wife Rosa Linares Uriburu. After graduating from high school in his hometown, he studied economics with a focus on accounting at the Universidad de Buenos Aires from 1918 to 1921 . In 1923, at the age of 22, he was appointed professor of political economy at the same university; He held this chair - in addition to his other duties - until 1948. (As an exile, however, he was no longer able to teach since 1943.)

In 1930 Prebisch entered the civil service and worked first for the Banco de la Nación Argentina (Argentine National Bank), then for the Ministry of Housing and rose to the position of State Secretary. In 1935 he was appointed the first director ( Gerente General ) of the Argentine Central Bank , founded in the same year .

When in June 1943 the military, including Juan Perón , united in the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos , took part in a coup, Prebisch opposed the putschists and went into exile in Chile. In exile he wrote the book Introducción a Keynes (Introduction to Keynes). It was published in 1947 and shaped the Latin American debates on the economic order and economic policy in the years that followed .

In 1948 Prebisch was instrumental in founding the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean ( Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe , CEPAL) of the United Nations. From 1949 to 1963 he was its first director, then, from 1964 to 1969, Secretary General of UNCTAD ( United Nations Conference on Trade and Development ). Even after his retirement, Prebisch remained an influential economist in Latin America as editor of the CEPAL magazine . In 1984 he returned to his home country to support the government of Raúl Alfonsín , the first freely elected president after the end of the military dictatorship, as an economic policy advisor.

Prebisch's name is closely linked to the development of the theory of the secular deterioration of the terms of trade ( Prebisch-Singer thesis ) and structuralist economic policy . For this groundbreaking was his 1949 study published El desarrollo económico de la América Latina y algunos de sus principales problemas ( The economic development of Latin America and some of its most important problems , English translation 1950: The economic development of Latin America and its principal problems ).

Awards

In 1971 Prebisch was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 1977 he received the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal of Honor from the German Society for the United Nations .

Fonts (in selection)

  • Introducción a Keynes , 1947.
  • El desarrollo económico de la América Latina y algunos de sus principales problemas , 1949. Numerous reprints.
  • Crecimiento, desequilibrio y disparidades: Interpretación del proceso de desarrollo económico , 1950.
  • Problemas teóricos y prácticos del crecimiento económico , 1951.
  • La cooperación internacional en la política de desarrollo latinoamericana , 1954.
  • Hacia una dinámica del desarrollo latinoamericano , 1963.
  • Hacia una estrategia global del desarrollo , 1968.
  • Transformación y desarrollo. La gran tarea de America Latina , 1970.
  • Capitalismo periferico. Crisis y transformacion , 1981.
  • The Latin American periphery in the global system of capitalism . In: Ángel Rama (ed.): The long struggle of Latin America. Texts and documents from José Martí to Salvador Allende . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1982. ISBN 3-518-37312-9 . Pp. 396-411.
  • Cinco etapas de mi pensamiento sobre el desarrollo , 1983 (a thoroughly self-critical review of the development of his economic thinking)

literature

  • Lev Klochkovski: La herencia teórica de Raúl Prebisch y las relaciones económicas exteriores de América Latina . In: Luisa Montuschi, Hans Singer (eds.): Los problemas del desarrollo en América Latina . Fondo de Cultura Económica de Argentina (FCE), Buenos Aires 1992. ISBN 950-557-123-2 . Pp. 129-139.
  • Dieter Nohlen: Raúl Prebisch . In: D + Z Development and Cooperation , Vol. 40 (1999), pp. 316–319.
  • Jörg Roesler : Compact economic history of Latin America from the 18th to the 21st century . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2009. ISBN 978-3-86583-383-9 . In Chapter 8.1: Raúl Prebisch and the Dependencia Theory (pp. 118–121).

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b c Jörg Roesler: Compact economic history of Latin America from the 18th to the 21st century . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2009. p. 119.
  2. ^ Joseph L. Love: The Rise and Decline of Economic Structuralism in Latin America. In: Latin American Research Review. Vol. 40, No. 3 (2005), pp. 100-125. P. 101.
  3. ↑ Ángel Rama (ed.): The long struggle of Latin America. Texts and documents from José Martí to Salvador Allende . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1982. p. 417.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Prebisch, Raúl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Argentine development economist
DATE OF BIRTH April 17, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Tucuman
DATE OF DEATH April 29, 1986
PLACE OF DEATH Santiago de Chile