Since the first edition of this book was published in 1995, there have been major advances in our knowledge of the economic history of Latin America as a result of new data series. This has made it possible in this edition to estimate foreign trade, fiscal accounts, and even gross domestic product (GDP) per head for all the main Latin American countries back to the time of independence 200 years ago. As a result, we can compare with much more confidence the region's long-run economic performance not only among the Latin American republics themselves, but also against other countries.

It has long been recognized that Latin America had “fallen behind” the United States, at least as measured by GDP per head, even before independence. New empirical research for this edition, however, suggests that the gap was much bigger than previously thought. Thus, Latin America had fallen well behind the United States even before it became “Latin America.” Indeed, the gap was almost certainly substantial even before the United States became the “United States.” Thus, two-thirds of the gap in current living standards had emerged two centuries ago, and only one-third can be attributed to the independence period.