Finance and Development in an Emerging Market : Argentina and the Interwar Period

The long-run economic performance of Argentina since World War One has been relatively disappointing until recently. Yet, in the interwar period, signs of future retardation andquot; recurring crises were not so obvious. It is often claimed that an unmitigated success was thequot; remarkably rapid growth of domestic financial markets. In conventional models deepening industrializing economy such asquot; Argentina's. Yet the promise of this trend was unfulfilled: first the outbreak of World War Onequot; and then the Great Depression proved a setback for the fledgling financial system deterioration set in after 1940. In this paper we trace the course of financial development usingquot; historical and international comparisons and we analyze both macro- and microeconomic aspectsquot; of financial intermediation