the Prebisch report as “mere fiction” or worse – a piece of “political propaganda.” 192 In his Dissent on Development, Bauer asserts that the UNCTAD view – essentially Prebischian at the time – on economic development was “wholly invalid.” 193 “Economic development,” Bauer writes, “is n ot simply or even largely a function of investment expenditure, least of all of investment expenditure.” Moreover, Bauer notes that “large -scale investment expenditure requiring large-scale imports is neither necessary nor sufficient for economic developme nt.” He concludes that “high levels of economic attainment and rates of development” have often been attained “without being constrained by the level of imports,” citing Brazil, Mexico and Peru among others as examples of countries which have advanced economically without external help or payment difficulties. Furthermore, Bauer refutes the argument that external market conditions limited the imports to underdeveloped countries, because the UNCTAD literature supporting it ignored “rates of exchange, the lev el of prices and costs, and the flow of money incomes,” all of which are widely considered to be major determinants of the volume of imports and exports in an economy. Ultimately, the empirical evidence in favour of UNCTAD’s (and hence Prebisch’s) theory o n international development and its obstacles suffered from “oversimplification.” 194 There is simply an extreme amount of heterogeneity, both in predominantly primary product producing countries and in the underdeveloped world more generally, that makes a one-size fits all evaluation of obstacles in economic development impossible. Just as Argentine business cycles could not be managed in the same way that they were managed in Europe, nor were the obstacles to development of one periphery country wholly the same as those of another. Nevertheless, Prebisch’s ideas on unequal exchange 192 P. T. Bauer, Dissent on Development: Studies and debates in development economics (London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1971), page 271. 193 Bauer, Dissent on Development: Studies and debates in development economics , page 237. 194 Bauer, Dissent on Development: Studies and debates in development economics , page 239.
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