The Hoover Institution Archives has acquired a major collection of 8,788 Spanish-language newspaper commentaries (op-eds) written between 1991 and mid-2010 by 734 authors for the Agencia Interamericana de Prensa Económica. AIPE was launched by Venezuelan-American journalist Carlos Ball in April 1991 and offered weekly sets of columns to Spanish-language newspapers, magazines, and websites throughout Latin America, the U.S., and Spain, until it ceased operation in June 2010. Most of the authors are prominent classical liberal analysts from some twenty countries, mainly in Latin America though several are Hoover Institution fellows. The opeds constitute a running commentary on economic and political developments throughout the region – and to a lesser degree the world -- during almost two decades that saw (1) the rise and in many ways retreat of the “Washington Consensus,” (2) significant improvements in the monetary and other policies in some countries, (3) several good recent years for some countries in GDP growth, in large part because of greatly increased exports of natural resources and commodities from South America, particularly to China, and (4) the emergence of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his authoritarian populist “twenty-first-century socialism.” This latter regime and “socialism” won the backing of several Latin American governments and many individuals and marks a democratically chosen retreat from market economies and enhancement of paternalism that has deep roots in Hispanic culture. AIPE editor Ball was director general of the El Diario de Caracas and authored two books on liberty, democracy and corruption before coming to the United States in 1987. He has an MBA from Boston University, has been a member of the Mont Pelerin Society since 1986 and is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.
