Albert O. Hirschman and the Structuralist–Monetarist Debate in Latin America

This paper analyzes the standpoint of Albert O. Hirschman in the structuralist–monetarist debate that took place in Latin America during the 1950s and 1960s. It claims that Hirschman had many affinities with the structuralist approach, in virtue of his methodological stance and of his view of the role to be performed by economic advisers in foreign countries. Similar to the structuralists, Hirschman did not make the control of inflation a central tenet of his development theory; also like them, he dissented from the orthodox approach. However, Hirschman did not take a clear-cut side on the debate, choosing, instead, to act as a go-between.