Argentina's Parallel Currency: The Economy of the Poor

265 Pages·2009·1.33 MB·English

by  Georgina M. Gomez

ARGENTINA’S PARALLEL CURRENCY:
THE ECONOMY OF THE POOR

FINANCIAL HISTORY
Series Editor: Robert E. Wright
Titles in this Series
1 Slave Agriculture and Financial Markets in Antebellum America: Th e Bank
of the United States in Mississippi, 1831–1852
Richard Holcombe Kilbourne, Jr
2 Th e Political Economy of Sentiment: Paper Credit and the Scottish Enlight-
enment in Early Republic Boston, 1780–1820
Jose R. Torre
3 Baring Brothers and the Birth of Modern Finance
Peter E. Austin
4 Gambling on the American Dream: Atlantic City and the Casino Era
James R. Karmel
5 Government Debts and Financial Markets in Europe
Fausto Piola Caselli (ed.)
6 Virginia and the Panic of 1819: Th e First Great Depression and the
Commonwealth
Clyde A. Haulman
7 Towards Modern Public Finance: Th e American War with Mexico,
1846–1848
James W. Cummings
8 Th e Revenue Imperative: Th e Union’s Financial Policies during the
American Civil War
Jane Flaherty
9 Guilty Money: Th e City of London in Victorian and Edwardian Culture,
1815–1914
Ranald C. Michie
10 Financial Markets and the Banking Sector: Roles and Responsibilities in a
Global World
Elisabeth Paulet (ed.)
Forthcoming Titles
Convergence and Divergence of National Financial Systems: Evidence from the
Gold Standards, 1871–1971
Patrice Baubeau and Anders Ögren (eds)
Th e Rise and Fall of the American System: Nationalism and the Development
of the American Economy, 1800–1837
Songho Ha
www.pickeringchatto.com/fi nancialhistory
ARGENTINA’S PARALLEL CURRENCY:
THE ECONOMY OF THE POOR
by
Georgina M. Gómez
london
PICKERING & CHATTO
2009
Published by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited
21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH
2252 Ridge Road, Brookfi eld, Vermont 05036-9704, USA
www.pickeringchatto.com
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise
without prior permission of the publisher.
© Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Ltd 2009
© Georgina M. Gómez 2009
british library cataloguing in publication data
Gomez, Georgina M.
Argentina’s parallel currency: the economy of the poor. – (Financial history)
1. Local exchange trading systems – Argentina. 2. Barter – Argentina. 3.
Argentina – Economic conditions – 1983–
I. Title II. Series
332.4’982-dc22
ISBN-13: 9781851966189
e: 9781851966936
∞

Th is publication is printed on acid-free paper that conforms to the American
National Standard for the Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials.
Typeset by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited
Printed in the UK by the MPG Books Group
CONTENTS
List of Figures ix
1 Economic Life as an Institutional Process 1
2 Perspectives on Complementary Currency Systems 21
3 Th e Political and Economic Context in Argentina 35
4 Launching the Club de Trueque 61
5 From Club de Trueque to Network 81
6 Governance of the Networks 107
7 Smaller Scale Trueque 133
8 Replacing Money for Economic Development 155
9 Conclusions 181
Notes 199
Works Cited 227
Index 247

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Figure 1.1: Size of RT in terms of participants and Trueque Clubs 5
Figure 1.2: Geographical distribution of CT in 2001 6
Figure 1.3: Relation between scale of RT and GDP growth rate, 1995–
2006 11
Figure 1.4: Relation between scale of RT and unemployment, 1995–2006 11
Figure 1.5: Relation between scale of RT and poverty, 1995–2006 12
Figure 3.1: Th ree-year average of Argentine GDP as percentage of the
average GDP of developed countries, 1885–2002 40
Figure 3.2: Argentina’s real GDP, 1980–2006 42
Figure 3.3: Variations in main monetary variables, 1980–97, percentage 44
Figure 3.4: Activity, employment and unemployment rates (1980-2006) 49
Figure 3.5: Provincial currencies as percentage of monetary base, July
2001–October 2002 54
Figure 3.6: Relationships between policies, eff ects and institutions 60
Figure 4.1: Th e institutional action-information loop 67
Figure 4.2: Institutional action-information double loop 68
Figure 5.1: Factors driving institutional design 86
Figure 6.1: Number of participants by sub-network, beginning of 2002 114
Figure 7.1: Origin of products sold by respondents in the Trueque
(n=386) 145
Figure 7.2: Labour status of respondents (n=386) 148
Figure 9.1: Th e process of institutional design 197