World
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PERONISM
Libertarian economist Javier Milei has won the Argentine presidential
election, defeating Sergio Massa of the incumbent Unión por la Patria (UP) coalition. UP has its roots in Peronism, a traditionally left-wing political movement founded by Juan Perón in the 1940s.
In a 2020 article, MARÍA VICTORIA MURILLO and S.J. RODRIGO ZARAZAGA examine the factional dynamics of Peronism.
From the text:
“The long-running grand cleavage of Argentine politics—for or against Peronism with its complicated blend of populism, nationalism, trade-unionism, and redistributive
efforts accompanied by a pragmatic and broad ideological appeal—remains dominant across the country. Typically, core Peronist voters are the beneficiaries of redistributionist public policies. These include public-sector employees, workers in the informal sector, the unemployed, and slum dwellers. By contrast, middle-class Argentines tend to feel that too large a share of their payroll taxes goes into programs for the poor, and disapprove of the corruption associated with the Kirchners. Institutionally, Peronism is a heterogeneous affair. Its conservative camp includes most labor unions plus many state governors, who vie for influence with the progressive faction, which includes social movements, dissident unions, and La Cámpora, the Peronist youth wing. During the commodities boom, Argentine soybeans (the leading export) could pay for both higher wages and social-welfare programs. In post-boom Argentina, things are tougher. Since the 2001 crisis, social movements representing informal workers and the unemployed have grown in influence vis-a-vis unions and formal workers, long the backbone of Peronism. As a recession rages and a huge foreign debt looms, tensions have risen between the social-welfare policies on which so many Argentines depend and the painful squeeze that taxes put on the falling real wages of formal workers, some of whom have come to resent these redistributionist measures, seeing them as subsidies paid to ‘lazy’ informal workers.”
+ “In the 1980-90s, reformers dismantled Peronism’s traditional mechanisms of labor participation, and clientelist networks replaced unions as the primary linkage to the working and lower classes.” By Steve Levitsky. Link. And James W. McGuire on “Peronism without Peron.” Link.
+ “During his presidential tenure (1989-99), Carlos Menem arranged an unprecedented transformation in Argentina, combining conservative and neoliberal elements within the plebeian and populist matrix of Peronism.” By Gastón Souroujon. Link. And Miguel Teubal on the “rise and collapse of neoliberalism in Argentina.” Link.
+ “Peronists under Krichner represented a strand of the Pink Tide in Latin America that found it unfeasible to radically change the “reprimarization”—or renewed reliance on agricultural and mining exports—of the economy while the country was enjoying the monetary benefits of neo-extractivism and China’s growing demand.” By Ernesto Semán. Link.
NEW RESEARCHERS
Adult caregiving
EMILIA BRITO is a PhD candidate in economics at Brown University. In her job market paper, she explores the gender pay gap in the context of caring for sick parents.
From the abstract:
“This paper studies the impact of adult caregiving on gender inequality in the labor market. Using administrative data from Chile, we leverage variation in a parental health shock—the first cancer hospitalization of a parent—to examine who bears the burden of adult caregiving. After a parental health shock, daughters but not sons experience a reduction in employment and earnings. A parental health shock creates a caregiving penalty—the effect of the shock on daughters relative to sons—of 11% on earnings, increasing the overall gender pay gap by 9%. These penalties affect women even if they earn more than their partners or brothers, suggesting that gender norms influence the distribution of adult caregiving. Additionally, penalties are concentrated among women who are mothers, suggesting a correlation across the life cycle between care given to children and then to aging parents.”
+ Phenomenal World is hiring an part-time assistant editor based in New York. It will be your job to write this newsletter. See more details and apply here. And please share widely!
+ “Improving insurance markets does little to address the fact that the core drivers of the ‘climate risk doom loop’ rest in the design of capital markets.” New on PW, Advait Arun on insurance markets and climate risk. Link.
+ “The US is an exception with respect to virtually all factors governing intergenerational persistence, including returns to human capital, amount of socioeconomic segregation, and progressiveness of the tax-and-transfer system.” By Pablo A. Mitnik, Victoria Bryant, and David B. Grusky. Link.
+ An interview with Sanaa Alimia about the expulsion of Afghan migrants from Pakistan. Link.
+ “In the energy sector, export credit agency financing is not only larger than that provided by multilateral financial institutions, but it has been vital to the development of carbon intensive sectors.” By Maxfield Peterson and Christian Downie. Link.
+ Brian Mier, Bryan Pitts, Kathy Swart, Rafael R. Ioris, and Sean T. Mitchell on US involvement in the “long coup” that ousted the left from power in Brazil in 2016. Link.
+ Stefano Liberti on excessive land consumption in the Po Valley. Link.
+ Two on the underdevelopment of Gaza: Mostafa Hosny on crumbling health infrastructure and Noor Swirki and Sara Seif Eddin on drinking water shortages. Link and link.
+ “Banditry is a rather primitive form of organized social protest, perhaps the most primitive we know. In many societies it is regarded as such by the poor, who consequently protect the bandit, regard him as their champion, idealize him, and turn him into a myth: Robin Hood in England, Janošik in Poland and Slovakia, Diego Corrientes in Andalusia, who are probably all real figures thus transmuted. In return, the bandit himself tries to live up to his role even when he is not a conscious social rebel. The tough man, who is unwilling to bear the traditional burdens of the common man in a class society, poverty and meekness, may escape them by joining or serving the oppressors as well as by revolting against them. In any peasant society there are ‘landlords’ bandits’ as well as ‘peasant bandits’ not to mention the State’s bandits, though only the peasant bandits receive the tribute of ballads and anecdotes. Moreover, as the experience of Southern Spain between 1850 and 1875 shows, one sort of bandit can easily turn into another—the ‘noble’ robber and smuggler into the bandolero, protected by the local rural boss or cacique.” By Eric Hobshawm. Link.
Filed Under
Each week we highlight research from a graduate student, postdoc, or early-career professor. Send us recommendations: editorial@jainfamilyinstitute.org