page_title: Economy of Argentina
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Economy of Argentina / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Historical growth of Argentina from 1961 to 2016
context_page_description: Argentina is a developing country. It is the second-largest in South America behind Brazil.
  Argentina benefits from rich natural resources, a highly literate population, an export-oriented agricultural sector, and a diversified industrial base. Argentina's economic performance has historically been very uneven, with high economic growth alternating with severe recessions, particularly since the late twentieth century, since when income maldistribution and poverty have increased. Early in the twentieth century Argentina had one of the ten highest per capita GDP levels in the world, on par with Canada and Australia and surpassing both France and Italy.
  Argentina's currency declined by about 50% in 2018 to more than 38 Argentine pesos per U.S. Dollar and as of in that year is under a stand-by program from the International Monetary Fund. In 2019, it fell further by 25%.
  Argentina is considered an emerging market by the FTSE Global Equity Index, and is one of the G-20 major economies.
context_section_description: Prior to the 1880s, Argentina was a relatively isolated backwater, dependent on the salted meat, wool, leather, and hide industries for both the greater part of its foreign exchange and the generation of domestic income and profits. The Argentine economy began to experience swift growth after 1880 through the export of livestock and grain commodities, as well as through British and French investment, marking the beginning of a fifty-year era of significant economic expansion and mass European immigration.
  During its most vigorous period, from 1880 to 1905, this expansion resulted in a 7.5-fold growth in GDP, averaging about 8% annually. One important measure of development, GDP per capita, rose from 35% of the United States average to about 80% during that period. Growth then slowed considerably, such that by 1941 Argentina's real per capita GDP was roughly half that of the U.S. Even so, from 1890 to 1950 the country's per capita income was similar to that of Western Europe; although income in Argentina remained considerably less evenly distributed. According to a study by Baten and Pelger and Twrdek (2009), where the authors compare anthropometric values, i.e. height with real wages, Argentina’s GDP did increase for the decades after 1870 and before 1910 however, the heights have been left unaffected. This in turn suggests that the increase in welfare of the population did not take place during income expansion of the given period.
  The Great Depression caused Argentine GDP to fall by a fourth between 1929 and 1932. Having recovered its lost ground by the late 1930s partly through import substitution, the economy continued to grow modestly during World War II (in contrast to the recession caused by the previous world war). The war led to a reduced availability of imports and higher prices for Argentine exports that combined to create a US$1.6 billion cumulative surplus, a third of which was blocked as inconvertible deposits in the Bank of England by the Roca–Runciman Treaty. Benefiting from innovative self-financing and government loans alike, value added in manufacturing nevertheless surpassed that of agriculture for the first time in 1943, employed over 1 million by 1947, and allowed the need for imported consumer goods to decline from 40% of the total to 10% by 1950.
  The populist administration of Juan Perón nationalized the Central Bank, railways, and other strategic industries and services from 1945 to 1955. The subsequent enactment of developmentalism after 1958, though partial, was followed by a promising fifteen years. Inflation first became a chronic problem during this period (it averaged 26% annually from 1944 to 1974); but though it did not become fully "developed," from 1932 to 1974 Argentina's economy grew almost fivefold (or 3.8% in annual terms) while its population only doubled. While unremarkable, this expansion was well-distributed and so resulted in several noteworthy changes in Argentine society – most notably the development of the largest proportional middle class (40% of the population by the 1960s) in Latin America as well as the region's highest-paid, most unionized working class.
  The economy, however, declined during the military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983, and for some time afterwards. The dictatorship's chief economist, José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz, advanced a corrupt, anti-labor policy of financial liberalization that increased the debt burden and interrupted industrial development and upward social mobility. Over 400,000 companies of all sizes went bankrupt by 1982, and neoliberal economic policies prevailing from 1983 through 2001 failed to reverse the situation.
  Record foreign debt interest payments, tax evasion, and capital flight resulted in a balance of payments crisis that plagued Argentina with severe stagflation from 1975 to 1990, including a bout of hyperinflation in 1989 and 1990. Attempting to remedy this situation, economist Domingo Cavallo pegged the peso to the U.S. dollar in 1991 and limited the growth in the money supply. His team then embarked on a path of trade liberal
caption: Historical growth of Argentina from 1961 to 2016
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