Gallagher Publishes Article on Latin America’s China Boom
Kevin Gallagher, Professor of Global Development Policy at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, recently published an article that takes stock of China’s growing economic influence in Latin America, and examines the reforms Latin American states should pursue to avoid a commodity “bust.”
Gallagher’s article, entitled “Latin America’s China Boom,” was published by the NACLA Report on the Americas on September 19, 2016.
From the text of the article:
Latin America’s China Boom marked a new era in the economic history of the Americas. From the turn of the 19th century through the Great Depression of the early 1930’s, Latin America was a winner of what economic historians have referred to as the “commodity lottery” — that is, a period of growth fueled by the export of key natural resources and commodities that were in high demand during Western Europe’s industrial revolution. Silver, gold, coffee, wool and banana, among many other commodities, were exported from Latin America to Europe during this period. Indeed, Latin American governments and companies couldn’t get commodities out of the ground and overseas fast enough. Thus, both European and U.S. companies invested heavily in Latin American railroads, infrastructure and other activities to extract commodities out of the region and ship them back to Europe.
Kevin Gallagher is the co-chair of the Task Force on Regulating Capital Flows and has served as an advisor to the Department of State and the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States, as well as to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Gallagher has been a visiting or adjunct professor at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy; El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico; Tsinghua University in China, and the Center for State and Society in Argentina.