In A Century of Policy Mistakes Neils Jensen describes the demise of Argentina over the last 100 years.
A century ago Argentina ranked as one of the wealthiest countries in world, behind the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia but ahead of countries such as France, Germany and Italy. Its per capita income was 92% of the G16 average; it is 43% today. Life in Argentina was good. It enjoyed the benefits of one of the highest growth rates in the world and attracted immigrants left, right and centre. Boom times galore.
Argentina’s wealth was based on agriculture, but also on its strong ties with the UK, the pre-World War I global powerhouse. Equally importantly, it understood the importance of free trade and took advantage of the relatively open markets which prevailed in the years leading to the Great War. Most importantly, though, it benefitted from, but also relied upon, enormous inflows of capital from the rest of the world. All of this is well documented in a recent piece in The Economist which you can find here.
Neils identifies three main causes:
- An over-reliance on commodities;
- Failure to invest in education; and
- An increasingly closed, inward-looking economy.
It occurred to me that, apart from education, Australia has made the same mistakes.
Read more at A Century of Policy Mistakes | Niels Jensen – Absolute Return Partners | PRAGMATIC CAPITALISM.