Revisión del modelo de sustitución de importaciones: vigencia y algunas reconsideraciones

Abstract

The present international context - including the resurgence of isolationist and protectionist governments - binds us to reflect about the different forms of interrelationship, and its corresponding implications, between the various national economies: More or less openness? What kind of openness? Which economic sectors? What role does the State play for a nation's economic growth? The present text makes a historical review of the import substitution model that prevailed in Latin America for much of the 20th century, highlighting its successes and its deficiencies. The article reviews its precedent model, the primary export model that characterized much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries while also addressing its necessary modification after the external shocks of the Great Depression and the outbreak of World War II. The theoretical contributions of Raúl Prebisch and other ECLAC thinkers are reviewed to address the rationale and characteristics of the import substitution model. The paper concludes with a reflection on the feasibility of rethinking this model in a context of slow economic growth of more than 30 years, highlighting the factors of today's world together with the return of ideologies of less openness to international trade.