The Origins of Structuralism

H.W. Arndt. Modern Political Economy and Latin America. Eds. Jeffry Frieden,
Manuel Pastor Jr., and Michael Tomz. Westview Press, 2000: 5-9.

Introduction

In his recent book on economic development, I.M.D. Little distinguishes two broad categories of development economics. He calls them ‘neoclassical economics’ and ‘structuralism’.

“The structuralist sees the world as inflexible. Change is inhibited by obstacles, bottlenecks and constraints. People find it hard to move or adapt, and resources tend to be stuck. In economic terms, the supply of most things is inelastic. Such general inflexibility was thought to apply particularly to LDC’s.... Entrepreneurs were lacking; and communications were poor.... This alleged inflexibility was married to the evident fact that the production structure of developing countries was very different from that of developed countries. To achieve development, it had to be changed rapidly.... The structuralist view of the world provides a reason for distrusting the price mechanism and for trying to bring about change in other ways. If supplies and demands are very inelastic large price changes are needed to achieve small quantitative adjustments. Large price changes are disturbing, both directly and also because they result in changes in income distribution.... If the losers are powerful, they may... be able to resist the change through organized industrial or political action... Structuralism primarily seeks to provide a reason for managing change by administrative action.”

The purpose of this article is to explore further the origins of structuralism, both in the broader sense and the more specific context of Latin American structuralist theories of inflation, and the links between them.

According to I.M.D. Little, the world which the structuralists see:

Item 0 - has no corners. In such a world, change is a smooth process.

É correto afirmar:

Item 4 - Sejam !$ c(y_1)=8y_1 !$ e !$ c(y_2)=10y_2 !$, os custos totais das firmas 1 e 2, respectivamente. É correto afirmar que, numa conjuntura de Cournot, a produção da firma 2 será menor que a da firma 1.

Um importador adquiriu vários artigos ao preço médio de US$ 15.00 com um desvio-padrão de US$ 1.00. Sabendo-se que a taxa de câmbio é de R$ 3,00 por dólar, é correto afirmar:

Item 4 - O coeficiente de variação calculado em reais, devido à taxa de câmbio, será 3 vezes maior do que aquele calculado utilizando-se os valores em dólar.

Sejam !$ A=\begin{pmatrix} 2&-1&-3\\1&-1&1\\-3&2&2\end{pmatrix}, \vec{x}=\begin{pmatrix}x_1\\x_2\\x_3 \end{pmatrix} !$e !$ \vec{b}=\begin{pmatrix}b_1\\b_2\\b_3 \end{pmatrix} !$. Assinale V (verdadeiro) ou F (falso):

Item 4 - o posto da matriz A é 2.

Considerando uma solução !$ x(t) !$ qualquer da equação diferencial !$ 3\cdot x"(t)+4 \cdot x'(t)+x(t)=0 !$, assinale V (verdadeiro) ou F (falso)

Item 2 - se !$ x(t) !$ tem um ponto de mínimo global na reta real !$ \mathbb{R} !$;

Responda V (verdadeiro) ou F (falso):

Item 1 - Seja !$ f:\mathbb{R}\rightarrow {R} !$ uma função duas vezes continuamente diferenciável tal que existem !$ a < b !$ com !$ f’(a)=f’(b)=0 e f(a)=f(b)=1 !$. Se existe !$ c !$ tal que !$ a < c < b !$ e !$ f(c)=0 !$, então existe !$ d !$ tal que !$ a < d < c !$ e !$ f’’(d)=0 !$.

Conclusion

Criticism of the structuralist theory of inflation of course did not spell the end of structuralism as a broad anti-market ideology, either in developed or developing countries. In developed countries the doctrine of market failure has come under increasingly critical scrutiny, broadly on the ground, as H.G. Johnson once put it, that ‘the possibility of market failure is not sufficient to prove the certainty of government success’. The price system, with all its acknowledged defects, may yet, on balance, be the lesser evil, compared with the operation in practice of bureaucratic planning and controls – controls which are often, as at least one contributor to the Latin American debate pointed out, a major source of the very rigidities which hamper the working of the price system.

The text leads to the following conclusions:

Item 2 - The structuralist theory of inflation can better be understood as a broad anti-market ideology.