Financial Intermediation and Growth: The Case of Argentina

Abstract

Argentina provides one of the most unique cases of economic development in modern history. Before 1930, Argentina was thought to be one of the world's great success stories; by 1980, it had suffered what is likely to be one of the poorest performances in the world over the last 35 years. While much research has been under the belief that economic growth is related to international trade, social and economic institutions, and other real (goods) phenomenon, the financial aspects have not been sufficiently addressed. The thrust of the thesis is that financial aspects do count in the context of development. Argentine financial relationships are traced from the revolutionary period to the fall of Peron in 1955. Then, financial activity is examined in detail from 1958 to 1986. The old measure of financial intermediation is discussed, and found to be biased in its measurement of financial system credit. A new measure of financial intermediation is developed, where non-currency M2 and M3 are used, since currency is not intermediated. Using the Granger-causality technique, it is found that a linkage existed between financial intermediation and real gross domestic product during 1960-68, but the linkage did not exist from 1970-86. This indicates that the financial system can no longer provide an impetus for economic growth in Argentina.Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-16T04:05:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 8908630.pdf: 9290711 bytes, checksum: ebc44ddd221473b5d5007141c065e03e (MD5) Previous issue date: 1988Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 70970 Lift date: Forever Reason: Restricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETDsRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETDsU of I Only261 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1988