For Different Audiences, Different Arguments: Economic Rhetoric at the Beginning of the Latin American School

Abstract

This paper consists of a rhetorical interpretation of two essays published fifty years ago, at the beginning of the so-called “Latin American economic school.” Both were written by the Argentinean economist Raúl Prebisch (1901–1986), who was then working at the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA). As the most prominent Latin American economist, Prebisch fostered the construction of a theoretical framework that heavily influenced Latin American development policies after World War II.