SAN JOSÉ STATE UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT
Thayer Watkins

The Economics of Raúl Prebisch

Raúl Prebisch represents a particular approach to the economics of development that was popular in Latin America in the 1950's and 1960's. It could be called heterodoxical, in the sense that it purported to be a viable alternative to the orthodox approach to economic policy represented by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). With the failed attempts of various heterodoxies and the successes of neoconservative policies not much is heard now of Prebisch and other proponents of structuralism and heterodoxy.

Prebisch was born in Argentina in 1901. His father had come to Argentina from Germany as a child. His mother came from an old Spanish family of Argentina. He was educated in economics at the University of Buenos Aires and earned his degree in 1923 at the age of 22. He pursued a dual career in education and government throughout his life. While he taught political economy at the University of Buenos Aires he was also the deputy director of statistics for the Argentine government and later the director of economic research for the National Bank of Argentina. From 1930 to 1932 he was Under Secretary of Finance for the Argentine government and later, 1933 to 1935, adviser to the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Agriculture. In 1935 he was appointed by the president of Argentina to organize the Central Bank of Argentina. He was the direct general of the Central Bank of Argentina for eight years. Later he was asked to organize the Central Bank of Mexico. All the while he was also a professor of political economy at the University of Buenos Aires.

He left his position with the University of Buenos Aires in 1948 when he invited by the Secretary General of the United Nations to be an adviser to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA). Two years later he became the executive secretary of ECLA.

HOME PAGE OF Thayer Watkins