Income distribution and the balance of payments: a formal reconstruction of some Argentinian structuralist contributions Part I: Technical dependency

Abstract

In this two-part paper, we explore the interaction between income distribution and the balance of payments, by assessing the contributions of three Argentinian exponents of the Latin American Structuralist School: Oscar Braun, Marcelo Diamand and Adolfo Canitrot. With this aim, we introduce a two-sector model inspired by the classical tradition. Part I of the article examines the implications for prices and quantities of the phenomenon of ‘technical dependency’. That is, the inelastic demand for imported inputs observed in peripheral economies, a true constraint to growth during the Bretton Woods era. We leave until Part II of the paper the assessment of the implications of ‘financial dependency’, namely the influence exerted on the profit rate of peripheral economies by the international profit rate.