Raúl Prebisch and the cultural life of Tucumán

Abstract

This article investigates the family and social environment of the economist Raúl Prebisch, as well as the avant-garde cultural education he received in the prosperous and cosmopolitan province of Tucumán, where he was born, and where he lived until he was seventeen. The data collected support the conclusion that the success of Prebisch’s career between the 1920s and 1940s is not satisfactorily explained without taking into account hispatrician origin and the broad intellectual horizon he acquired within the framework of the cultural institutions of Tucumán. By analyzing Prebisch’s trajectory from a different starting point and another perspective, the text contributes to the still open discussion about different and controversial phases of the economist’s life.