Economists in the Americas

Probably no region's economists have had greater public visibility or greater impact on regional and national public policy than Latin America's. "Economists in the Americas" joins a small but important comparative literature on economics as a profession and is the first comparative treatment of the Americas. This edited collection is also the first study to examine professional economists in the United States and Latin America. In this title, a multidisciplinary group of scholars discuss the last sixty years of shifting trends in economics in seven countries in the Western Hemisphere - Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay and the United States. There is a comparative section that points to the distinctive interconnections among the national cases, the forging and breakdown of consensus around state and market dominance, the transnational diffusion of economic ideas and professional norms, as well as the embrace and rejection of an increasingly Americanized professional identity among Latin American economists. Topics covered include the history of economics in the Americas, the rise of neoliberalism in the region, transnational connections among economists, the role of economists in politics and policy-making in the hemisphere, economics education, and competing paradigms in the field. The book will be of interest to policymakers and scholars interested in the history and sociology of economics, development, public policy, international affairs, political science, and Latin Americans studies.