Inflation in Chile and Argentina

In: Journal of Inter-American Studies, Volume 3, Issue 4, p. 539-548

Abstract

There is a newly-respectable school of economics which claims that a little inflation is a good thing and necessary to sustain a high rate of economic growth. It has not even been deterred by the experience of the recession of 1958, by which time normal market forces had been tampered with to such an extent that the United States was treated to the novel and startling spectacle of continued inflation in the midst of a downturn in the productive sectors of the economy. These same economists view inflation not only as a good thing in the developed, industrialized nations, but as practically a necessity in the underdeveloped countries. They thus give aid and comfort to those elements in the underdeveloped areas which are attempting to find an easy solution to the problem of industrial growth, a problem which took the advanced countries many decades and much work and social upheaval to solve.