Tag Archives: Peronism

Arbitrage and Import Controls in Argentina during the 1950s

Two documents from the US State Department’s archives show how import controls presented opportunities for extraordinary profits during the first Peronist governments.

Following the Second World War, there was a worldwide dollar shortage due to the United States’ high level of self-sufficiency as an agro-industrial behemoth. Governments therefore imposed quantitative controls on imports, in order to ration the available supply of dollars. A study made in 1955 by John Hopkins, an enterprising member of the US Embassy in Buenos Aires, demonstrates how these controls presented fantastic opportunities for arbitrage profits for those who could obtain them.

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The Descent of José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz

The family history of José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz helps explain the logic of Argentina’s last military dictatorship.

José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz was the product of one of Argentina’s most famous landowning families. As Minister of Economy during the dictatorship of 1976-83, he then became infamous as the architect of an economic programme that left the country racked by stagnation and hyperinflation. To understand why this occurred, it is helpful to look at the origins of the man himself.

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