RE: Argentina (fwd)

["Leticia Arroyo Abad" <asecon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Doug wrote:
> Well, what I meant was - how do people live? Are they fed, clothed,
housed,
> and educated in a way that more closely resembles Mexico or Korea? What
> about the structure of the labor force, the level of industrialization,
the
> level of technology possessed by Argentine firms? Is there evidence of
> strong and persistent technological upgrading, or do the foreigners own
all
> the patents?

The technological upgrading is just an externality from the outside world,
the rise in productivity was due to an dinvestment during the previous
decade, high-tech production is nonexistent (nor research and development
in this area), the supply of machinery for our industry is imported from US
and UE. Patents is still a discussion issue, US is higly interested in this
(esp. in drugs) and have been trying to get a law, but as far as I know it
didn't succeed. Now as we are in political times, I don't think this topic
will prosper.
In income distribution, Argentina relation between fifth and first fifth is
13.8 and Mexico's 13.5, and gini coefficient is 11.8 and 13.8.
The analfabetism index is 4% is Argentina and it doubles in Mexico, but
there is a lot of desertion in Argentina (this it's not reflected in the
latter).
>From the very beginning our country's economic activities were concentrated
in agriculture, then, an industrial policy was implemented in order to
create an industry sector, this policy was mixed with "inside growth". When
the economy was opened, mayor difficulties appeared as the industrial
sector couldn't cope with outside competition, a reestructuring process
began. The fact is that the industrial sector is highly dependant to the
local market and the sector that grew faster was the non-tradable.
Well, I'm not trying to sell Argentina, saying that's wonderful, the
economic recovery is the first step, there are lots of things to do from
now on. Social security services are almost nonexistence, not in the budget
but as services to the whole population. If you want a decent medical care
or security you have to hire private services, as a consequence your income
is reduced as you pay taxes (for services unexistent) and on the other hand
you have to pay for them to private suppliers.