Macroeconomics the Latin American Way: Sunkel and the Quest for a Structuralist Model

The paper provides a narrative of the effort to develop a structuralist macroeconomic model in Latin America, as seen through the eyes of Chilean economist Osvaldo Sunkel (b. 1929). Sunkel faced the problem of how to model structuralism, an indigenous Latin American contribution to economics and to stabilization and development policies, put forward in the 1950s-1960s. It is shown how Sunkel deployed Schumpeter's 1954 distinction between "vision" and "scientific models", and how he took the Keynesian multiplier and Domar's growth equations as starting-points for his own formulations, instead of Lewis's 1954 model of a dual economy. Sunkel regretted the difficulties in formalizing the concept of "structure" and "structural" changes. Eventually, Sunkel became a co-founder of Latin American neo-structuralism in the 1990s, which is now regarded part of international heterodox economics in general

Optimum Saving and Growth: Harrod on Dynamic Welfare Economics

In the 1960s and 1970s Harrod shifted the emphasis of his research in economic dynamics from the study of business cycles (instability principle) to the investigation of the growth process. As part of that, he restated his concept of the natural growth rate as an optimum welfare rate. The present paper examines Harrod's dynamic welfare economics, built around his concept of optimum saving developed as a reaction to Ramsey's approach to capital accumulation. It is shown that, according to Harrod, the saving rate does not affect the long-run growth rate of per capita income, which is determined by technical progress. Moreover, the economy will grow at the natural (full employment) rate only if economic policy is able to bring saving to its "optimum" level in macroeconomic equilibrium. Harrod's interest in optimal growth was motivated by his double concern with growth policy in mature economies and economic development in poor countries