The alleged countercyclical nature of Argentina's exports of manufactures

It has been suggested that, during the 1970s and 1980s, excess capacity played an important role in the performance of Latin American exports of manufactures. This paper shows that countercyclical factors should be expected for most exports, and submits the hypothesis that these effects are more important for a limited subset of products with special characteristics. Econometric testing of Argentine export functions could not reject this hypothesis. The paper ends by discussing the implications for export modelling and policy analysis.