The best-known economist of Latin America in the twentieth century, and possibly the most influential, was the Argentinean Raúl Prebisch. He was also the region’s most famous international civil servant. Prebisch was the founder of the Argentine Central Bank; as director of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA), he originated the structuralist school of development. He later headed the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and in that capacity he sought to change the structure of international trade. In the last years of his long life, he became a leading figure in the dependency movement. Edgar Dosman has written a full-length biography of Prebisch, examining his public career in Argentina, his role in the several UN orga-nizations he headed, his relationships with Argentine and non-Argentine politicians, his career as economic and social theorist, and his personal life.
Prebisch was born in 1901 in remote Tucumán to a...
