------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW --------------
Published by EH.NET (January 2008)
Sebastian Edwards, Gerardo Esquivel and Graciela M?rquez, editors,
_The Decline of Latin American Economies: Growth, Institutions, and
Crisis_. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. viii + 418 pp.
$85 (cloth), ISBN: 978-0-226-18500-1.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Richard J. Salvucci, Departments of Economics
and History, Trinity University
This book is something of a disappointment, but certainly for no
intellectual reason. The papers in it, the results of an NBER
conference, are almost uniformly excellent. Their authors are a
distinguished group. Chances are if you're interested in Latin
America, you will learn something new, come away stimulated, and wish
you could read the conference commentaries, which do not appear. So
what's not to like, aside from proofreading that does the University
of Chicago Press no credit?[1]
Well, there is the title, _The Decline of Latin American Economies_.
It is a clich? that you can't judge a book by its cover. You can't
judge this one from its title, either. True, the lead paper, by
Leandro Prados de la Escosura, "When Did Latin America Fall Behind?"
is probably destined to become a classic reference. Not only can I do
his effort no justice in a brief review: Prados' paper probably
merits a conference (or at least a critical response) of its own.
Subtleties aside, the paper sensibly asks "decline relative to what?"
and then sets out to frame a proper answer drawing on something other
than the usual suspect sources. You may not agree with Prados'
quasi-postmodern "it all depends" conclusion, but then we are
reminded that, in the final analysis, index numbers are, perish the
thought, constructions. Yet after this really promising start, the
volume simply falls apart. It is about everything. To be sure, it is
an absorbing, sophisticated, even pioneering everything. But the only
thing that "declines" is coherence. I guess you really can't publish
a volume entitled "We had a conference, invited a bunch of really
smart people to do their thing, and this is the result." But
honestly, that's what you get.
And, boy, you do get some great stuff. As usual, what you rate "best"
is mostly a matter of preference, but there are some real gems
included. The briefest and most badly edited paper in the volume, by
Gerardo (aka "Geraldo" in its references) della Paolera and Mart?n
Grandes, "The True Measure of Country Risk ... (its baroque title is
almost as long as the text that follows) may be the single most
perceptive piece written about nineteenth-century public finance in
some time. Looking at sovereign and subsovereign (provincial) bond
spreads in Argentina from 1886 through 1892, they conclude "the
economic effects of the political structures of emerging nations are
an important consideration in analyzing their economic development
... [and] should be priced accordingly" (p. 210). Their insight cuts
through all the noise about liberals, conservatives, centralists,
federalists, revolts, rebellions and "revolutions" -- the political
chatter that contaminates the few decent time series we have (for any
country in the region) and provides both a coherent framework for
analysis as well as an indication of how mid to late-century
Namierist politics might actually affect macroeconomic outcomes. My
colleagues in history, to the extent they think about economic
history at all, rather confusingly contend that economic models
either prove the obvious or the impossible. Too bad they probably
won't read della Paolera and Grandes.
As usual, things Mexican are overrepresented, as if Mexico and the
purely notional "Latin America" were coterminous. That's OK with me
(again, personal preference), since the papers by Aurora
G?mez-Galvarriato, by Gerardo Esquivel and Graciela M?rquez jointly,
by Noel Maurer and Stephen Haber jointly, and by Pedro Lains (more
for his rehabilitation of Donald Keesing's neglected work than for
the empirics) are essentially what you'd expect from scholars of this
caliber. G?mez-Galvarriato's superb research on the textile industry
not only endogenizes protection in Mexico, it endogenizes the
"perfect dictatorship" of the PRI as well and puts to rest once and
for all the simplistic, economically chauvinist and wildly
ahistorical notion that the commercial policies followed in Mexico
before the 1980s were just a "mistake." Shortsighted they may have
been, and increasingly out of sync with structural changes in the
world economy already evident by the early 1970s as well. But by
then, Mexico's politics were a matter of institutional inertia too.
Yes history matters. It took until 2000 to get the PRI out of Los
Pinos, but then it had been in power since 1929. Such changes are
hardly costless.
I would be remiss if I did not mention that there are also very
thoughtful papers by Luis Catao, by Sebastian Edwards, by Michael
Bordo and Christopher Meissner jointly, and by the late Kenneth
Sokoloff and Eric Zolt jointly. They deal expertly with international
capital flows; establishing the credibility of stabilization
programs; variations, mostly venial, on 'original sin'; and the way
in which stark inequalities in wealth and power have contrived to
reproduce themselves in Latin America since the nineteenth century.
Of most interest to historians would probably be the paper by
Sokoloff and Zolt. I can only hope that one of Sokoloff's coauthors,
colleagues, or students will bring what had already become a very
influential research program to the conclusion presumably envisioned.
I offer no ritualized concluding paragraph. A book which is not a
book, however outstanding, really does not deserve one. You say
something's missing, right? Join the club. That's the best way to
convey the experience of reading this frustratingly directionless
"publication."
Note:
1. For one example, see the footnote on p. 197, with the priceless
Portuguese title, "Brazil: 1824-1957: Born on Mau Pagador." That
sounds more like a line from "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" than the
title of Marcello (sic) de Paiva Abreu's article. And this is the
sloppiness you can _see_.
Richard Salvucci is author of the forthcoming book, _La Deuda Eterna:
Politics and Markets in Mexico's "London Debt," 1823-1887_.
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