Ascensão e queda da CEPAL no comércio Latino-Americano

This work analyzes the criticism developed by ECLAC in the 1950s to the free trade between countries of varied degrees of industrialization, such as occurs between Latin American and European or North American countries. In particular, it addresses the theory created by Raúl Prebisch about the deterioration of the trade terms of trade in international commerce: the economic level in which Latin American countries were by then (and still are), the “underdevelopment” – as defined by the prevailing jargon at the time –, was not a stage of economic development, but rather a condition in which a country could not evade, unless adopting severe measures. Today, that criticism fell into oblivion, yet the problems that raised it still persist almost 70 years later. This paper contends that ECLAC’s theses were discredited because the proposals that were engendered to overcome said problems involved some form of obstacles to international commerce. However, the diagnosis of these problems is yet surprisingly current. The inductive method and bibliographic sources were employed.