Essays on the Argentine Political Economy through the lens of the Classical-Keynesian Approach

This Ph.D. thesis is composed of three essays and is aimed to reconstruct, both conceptually and analytically, the Argentine political economy for the period from 1955 to 1991. To this aim, we apply theoretical elements rooted in the Sraffian-Keynesian tradition of thought, such as the extension of Sraffa’s representation based on "Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities" to the price-taking economy framework, the Monetary Theory of Distribution and the demand-led growth model based on Sraffian Supermultiplier. However, unlike some recent reconstructions of Latin American specificities through the lens of the Classical tradition, we provide a formal representation of the Argentine historical experience that abandons the canonical dichotomy between agricultural and industrial sectors in modeling semi-industrialized economies. To account for the different stages of industrialization during the fifties and sixties we include a distinction between manufactured goods for final consumptions and capital goods. Likewise, the inclusion of banks and the financial sector becomes relevant to address financial liberalization and capital-account deregulation during the seventies and eighties. An intrinsic non-tradable sector, associated with public services, turns to be relevant to capture the consequences of privatization during the nineties. The suggested models take into consideration the heterogeneities among productive sectors, as the natural outcome of the structural changes observed during the period under study. The 1st essay presents a comprehensive analysis regarding some contributions made by the political theorist Guillermo O’Donnell, which revolve around the notions of the Argentine Pendulum, Bureaucratic-Authoritarian State, and their implications on income distribution and output dynamics. Under the basis of a tripartite productive structure, O’Donnell’s pendulum is formally reconstructed as the ambivalent behavior of the international bourgeoisie with respect to its strategy of the class alliance for the determination of both economic policies and the pattern of development. The 2nd essay analytically re-elaborates the change undergone by the Argentine economy during the 1970s and 1980s, from a strategy of import-substituting industrialization led by a labor-based government (1973-1976) to a pattern of development based on market liberalization and implemented by a Dictatorial Regimen (1976-1983). By applying Sraffa’s representation of the productive process, the Monetary Theory of distribution and the extension of the Keynesian Principle of Effective Demand in explaining the growth path, such structural changes are analyzed and modelized. The suggested formal representation accounts for the capital goods-producing industry, the financial sector and an intrinsic non-tradable sector as distinctive elements of the Argentine productive structure of the period considered. The essay analytically re-elaborates the distributive changes and the structural consequences of the economic policies implemented by the so-called National Reorganisation Process, both in the pattern of specialization and in the financial dependence of Argentina. Finally, the 3rd essay revisits the cost-pushed theories of inflation to reconstruct the dynamics observed in prices and income distribution. The suggested model stresses the role played by the exchange rate and crawling-peg policy in approaching the high inflation and hyperinflationary experiences during the eighties external-debt crisis. Additionally, the multiple stabilizing programs are analyzed and formally reconstructed in the light of the Classical-Keynesian Approach, highlighting the importance of the exchange rate and external determinants in stabilizing price dynamics. In this sense, the Convertibility Regime, during the nineties, is analyzed as a strategy to control the price dynamic by reinforcing the financial dependence of the Argentine economy.