Investing in growing markets: opportunities and challenges for multinationals in Argentina, 1900–1960

Abstract

This article analyzes the global and local factors that shaped foreign direct investment (FDI) in Argentina and the strategies of foreign multinationals to adapt to challenging circumstances and to exogenous shocks from the early twentieth century to the emergence of a new global economy in the 1950s. The central argument is that Argentina was a host economy attractive to foreign investments, not only in the first globalization period but also after the crisis of 1930 when the global economy started to crumble. Foreign firms viewed Argentina as a growing economy offering diverse business opportunities in different periods, with the exception of the interregnum of World War II and the Peronist administration (1946–1955), when financial and political risks appeared. The article draws on a different approach to the more traditional stock-flow FDI analyses, relying on a new database of foreign-controlled companies that operated in Argentina in the twentieth century (Foreign Companies in Argentina Database).