Presentation of book: Raíces del pensamiento económico argentino (Roots of Argentine economic thought)
This book attempts to trace the roots of Argentine economic thought, ideas that in many cases arise with scientific revolutions and counterrevolutions originated in Europe, then imported to our lands. Historians and economists from different public and private universities of the country were summoned for the task, knowledgeable about the different schools or traditions of thought, who detailed the way in which the ideas penetrated Argentina and then developed and evolved. The reader will be able to observe that the 19th century has been marked by classical liberal ideas, coming from the Laissez Faire and classical thought and impacting in the first economists such as Belgrano and Vieytes, arriving later the the Generation of 1937 and specifically to the Constitutional Bases of Juan Bautista Alberdi. Even in Marxist authors a free trade position seems to prevail, as may be seen in the writings Juan B. Justo. But, with the crisis of 1930, the Keynesian revolution had its echo in our country, reaching later its own local dimension with the structuralism of Raúl Prebisch, Julio Olivera and Roberto Frenkel. To this growing interventionism and protectionism, multiple efforts to contain and reverse them have arisen, importing ideas of the Austrian School, the School of Chicato, the Social Market Economy, the New Institutional Economy and the School of Public Choice. These intellectual efforts, however, though they have contributed to form economists in some private universities have had little impact in society and economic policy. If in the 19th century a liberal thought prevailed in the constitutional framework, in the 20th century and, so far in the 21st century its antithesis has prevailed, what has resulted in constitutional reforms and a notable change of those rules and institutions.
Economist, specialized in monetary theory, the study of economic cycles, public finance and the history of economic thought. He has obtained his Ph.D. degree in Applied Economics from the University Rey Juan Carlos of Madrid (2009), under the direction of professor Jesús Huerta de Soto (see Report). He has been a student at ESEADE where he obtained a Master in Economics and Business Administration (2004). He has also obtained a Bachelor´s degree in Economics from the School of Economic Sciences of the National University of Buenos Aires (2002). In an effort to expand the ideas of the Classical and Scottish School, the Austrian School, the Public Choice School and the New Institutional Economy he has been professor in different universities of Argentina such as the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) itself, the Higher School of Economics and Business Administration (ESEADE), the University of Business and Social Sciences (UCES), the University of Salvador (USAL) and the Catholic University of Argentina (UCA). During the second semester of 2012 he was also visiting professor at the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the Francisco Marroquín University in Guatemala.
Managing Director of the Friedman Hayek Center for the Study of a Free Society, a research center at UCEMA, where he also is a professor. Analyst of politics and international relations issues. Matias Ilivitzky has a BA. in Political Science and a BA. in Political Science Teaching, as well as a Ph.D. in Social Sciences from Universidad de Buenos Aires. He also completed a postgraduate specialization course in Project Management at Universidad del CEMA. He received two postgraduate scholarships from the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina, and was a lecturer and researcher at Universidad de Buenos Aires and Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Author of the book "From radical evil to the banality of evil" (Editorial Teseo) and of various research papers and opinion pieces.