The approach originated with the work of the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA or CEPAL) and is primarily associated with its director Raúl Prebisch and Brazilian economist Celso Furtado.
Prebisch himself helped provide the rationale for the idea of import substitution industrialization, in the wake of the Great Depression and World War II.
This included the recognition of: More recent contributions to structuralist economics have highlighted the importance of institutions and distribution across both productive sectors and social groups.
At the macroeconomic level modern structuralists would trace the origins of their approach to Kalecki's Problems of Financing Economic Development in a Mixed Economy.
[7] Fitz Gerald’s version of this model of an industrializing economy has three commodity markets (food, manufactures and capital goods), foreign trade and income distribution which underpin the specification of a financial-sector with savings, investment, fiscal and monetary balances.