Macroeconomic outcomes and the relative position of Argentina’s economy: 1875-2000

This paper attempts to investigate the main factors behind Argentina’s economic decline comparing its evolution to that of Australia and Canada. With this objective, we have constructed a reduced index of economic freedom which captures and summarises the main political macroeconomic outcomes covering the period 1875-2000, After using co integration and causality techniques, the results obtained show how the macroeconomic policies implemented during this very long period are to explain the relative evolution, in terms of GDP per head, of Argentina’s economy.