Si todas las culturas son moralmente equivalentes, entonces todos los individuos no estamos dotados de los mismos derechos humanos, porque hay culturas que adjudican a algunos hombres más derechos que a otros hombres y mujeres. Si por el contrario todos los individuos poseemos los mismos derechos, entonces todas las culturas no son moralmente equivalentes, porque hay culturas que no reconocen, ni siquiera en principio, la vigencia de esos derechos universales. Las dos afirmaciones son contradictorias y no pueden ser ambas verdaderas.

El surgimiento del peronismo presentó a los marxistas argentinos un dilema teórico: la clase obrera, para ellos el sujeto de la historia, rechazaba al partido de clase para seguir a un líder exógeno. No era éste el primer problema teórico que debían resolver, ya que en la conferencia de partidos comunistas latinoamericanos realizada en Buenos Aires en 1929, habían debido enfrentar las posiciones de José Carlos Mariátegui referidas a la cuestión indígena y al papel del imperialismo en América Latina.

Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together. Liberty is not a mean to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.   Lord Acton Liberty is meaningless if it is only the liberty to agree with those in power. Von Mises

Este trabajo efectúa un análisis de la forma en que los partidos de oposición actúan en las elecciones presidenciales, buscando darles un rol activo. Para ello se construye un modelo con dos niveles de gobierno, uno Nacional y el otro provincial o estadual.

This is the last of a series of three working papers analyzing the basic characteristics of the economic environment in which Latin American firms operate and the optimal design of incentive programs compatible with such environment.  Executive pay-for-performance compensation schemes are usually based on stock returns.  However, stock returns change in response to forces beyond management control (e.g., market crushes). The economic environment in which Latin American firms operate is highly unstable, which means that this is a very important limitation for Latin American firms.

This paper seeks to expand on two topical strands in Government Finance and Political Science literature, rent-seeking and the soft-budget constraint, so as to bring forth a strong linkage with corporate governance environments. It will attempt to accomplish this task by setting up a distinctive framework of analysis that hinges on incremental cash flows. Firstly, it claims that both rent-seeking behavior and the soft-budget constraint are worthy of being applied to corporate governance learning and practice.

This paper analyzes the sources of quality of a pharmaceutical product. After identifying eight quality dimensions, a framework of hypothetical sources that contribute the most to shape those dimensions is established.   The framework, based on Garvin’s pioneering work, is applied to case studies of laboratories operating in Argentina. Framework relevance is considered using correlation analysis.

The paper combines a brief review of basic monetary theory, a discussion of the critical monetary and banking experience undergone by Argentina between 1980 and 2002, an essay on the stability of velocity of circulation and a proposal for reform. Our thesis is that after a hyperinflation episode (or under currency substitution), when velocity of circulation stops being a parameter to become a very volatile magnitude, an independent or active monetary policy (a floating exchangerate regime) becomes a high-risk policy.

In contrast to previous empirical work on electoral cycles, which implicitly assumes the executive has full discretion over fiscal policy, this paper contends that under separation of powers an unaligned legislature may have a moderating role. Focusing on the budget surplus, we find that stronger effective checks and balances explain why cycles are weaker in developed and established democracies. Once the discretional component of executive power is isolated, there are significant cycles in all democracies.

This is a sequel to UCEMA working paper # 277, and as such, the draft of the second chapter of a book project on Argentina as a ‘parasite state’, i.e., one that simultaneously lives off the rest of the world and consumes itself, harboring parasitical segments within its political elite, bourgeoisie, bureaucracy and proletariat. This chapter delves on the so-called “piqueteros”, the picketing organizations that emerged during the 1990s and have since thrived.