The global economy is in a deep crisis at three levels, each driven by the…
Prebisch’s Critique of Bretton Woods Plans: Its relation to Kalecki and Williams’ Ideas Esteban Pérez Caldentey and Matías Vernengo
The name and work of Raúl Prebisch are often associated with the problem of long-term economic development in Latin America. Less well known and explored is Prebisch’s contribution to the study of the monetary and financial problems of the countries of the periphery in relation to those of the center. Prebisch analyzed the post-WW-II monetary plans of John Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White from the perspective of their compatibility with his national autonomous monetary policy proposal. He thought that both plans had important shortcomings that would prevent the achievement of their intended objective, international equilibrium in the balance-of-payments. The plans ignored the differences in the levels of development between center and periphery. These differences implied that economic and monetary phenomena could not be viewed through the same lens and that all countries could not be subject to the same norms in monetary policy. Prebisch’s concerns were shared by John H. Williams and also, by Michal Kalecki.
01_2021 (Download the full text in PDF format)
About the Authors:
The authors are Senior Economic Affairs Officer at ECLAC (Santiago, Chile) and Professor of Economics at Bucknell University (Lewisburg, PA) respectively.
