The rationale for such reform rested largely on a contention famously advanced by the first secretary-general of UNCTAD, Raúl Prebisch—namely, that the terms of trade were deteriorating over time for exporters of primary products. The so-called Prebisch-Singer thesis was accepted by many of the economists working at the United Nations, including those serving under Prebisch at the Economic Commission for Latin America and later UNCTAD, but it was regarded as controversial in the discipline at large.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 1756