The Cambridge Economic History Of Latin America Volume 1 The Colonial Era And The Short Nineteenth Century

An indispensable reference work for anyone interested in Latin America's economic development.

Volume Two treats the 'long twentieth century' from the onset of modern economic growth to the present. It analyzes the principal dimensions of Latin America's first era of sustained economic growth from the last decades of the nineteenth century to 1930. It explores the era of inward-looking development from the 1930s to the collapse of import-substituting industrialization and the return to strategies of globalization in the 1980s. Finally, it looks at the long term trends in capital flows, agriculture and the environment.

Abstract: Levels of economic development vary widely within countries in the Americas. This paper argues that part of this variation has its roots in the colonial era. Colonizers engaged in different economic activities in different regions of a country, depending on local conditions. Some activities were "bad" in the sense that they depended heavily on the exploitation of labor and created extractive institutions, while "good" activities created inclusive institutions. The authors show that areas with bad colonial activities have lower gross domestic product per capita today than areas with good colonial activities. Areas with high pre-colonial population density also do worse today. In particular, the positive effect of "good" activities goes away in areas with high pre-colonial population density. The analysis attributes this to the "ugly" fact that colonizers used the pre-colonial population as an exploitable resource. The intermediating factor between history and current development appears to be institutional differences across regions and not income inequality or the current ethnic composition of the population.

A comprehensive balanced portrait of the factors affecting economic development in Latin America, first published in 2003.

This revised and updated third edition contains a wealth of new material that draws on new research in this area.

This study, now in a revised and updated third edition, covers the economic history of Latin America from independence in the 1820s to the present. It stresses the differences between Latin American countries while recognizing the external influences to which the whole region has been subject. Victor Bulmer-Thomas notes the failure of the region to close the gap in living standards between it and the United States and explores the reasons. He also examines the new paradigm taking shape in Latin America since the debt crisis of the 1980s and asks whether this new economic model will be able to bring the growth and improvement in equity that the region desperately needs. This third edition contains a wealth of new material that draws on the new research in the area in the past ten years.

This volume looks at Latin American history from c. 1870 to 1930.

This is the first work on British textile exports to South America during the nineteenth century. During this period, textiles ranked among the most important manufactures traded in the world market and Britain was the foremost producer. Thanks to new data, this book demonstrates that British exports to South America were transacted at very high rates during the first decades after independence. This development was due to improvements in the packing of textiles; decreasing costs of production and introduction of free trade in Britain; falling ocean freight rates, marine insurance and import duties in South America; dramatic improvements in communications; and the introduction of better port facilities. Manuel Llorca-Jaña explores the marketing chain of textile exports to South America and sheds light on South Americans' consumer behaviour. This book contains the most comprehensive database on Anglo-South American trade during the nineteenth century and fills an important gap in the historiography.