摘要：Without intermediation, it is difficult for trade to take place. In
this paper, I explore the centrality of local agents in the export
boom at the beginning of the twentieth-century in Argentina, a
country that ranked among the top five exporters of wheat in the
world.1 Agrarian expansion was the motor of the economic growth
of Argentina and it was part of a wider economic process that
included other Latin American rural areas that developed forms of
commercial agriculture. Rural merchants have been a driving
force behind rural-led economic development in the Argentinean
pampas. I am interested in analyzing not only the role of local
agents but also the configuration of informal regional networks
among different types of firms such as retailers, banks, importers,
and grain exporters.2 The way in which commercial networks are
organized varies over time and across space, and I concentrate on
one of the margins of the pampeana region (the National Territory
of La Pampa). My focus is the history of a family firm, Casa
Torroba Brothers, which was the most important commercial
house in La Pampa Territory, and whose long-standing
commercial activity has made it one of the few cases of continuity
and sustained commercial growth.
