Hirschman, industrialization and development theory

This essay analyzes three contributions of Albert Hirschman that are important to understand the Latin American industrialization process. The first are the features of this process vis-à-vis the “late industrialization” cases in the European continent analyzed by Alexander Gerschenkron. The second relates to the application of his theories of the dynamics of development, particularly the concepts of linkages and imbalanced growth. The third is his reflection on the rise and decline of classical development economics, which seem particularly useful to understand the crisis and eventual dismantling of the import substitution strategy in Latin America.