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The Colonial Origins of the Divergence in the Americas: A Labor Market Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2012

Robert C. Allen ,
Tommy E. Murphy  and
Eric B. Schneider
Robert C. Allen*
Affiliation:
Professor, Department of Economics and Nuffield College, University of Oxford, New Road, Oxford OX1 1NF, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected].
Tommy E. Murphy*
Affiliation:
Research Fellow, Centro Dondena and IGIER, Université Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Via Roentgen, 1, 20136 Milan, Italy. E-mail: [email protected].
Eric B. Schneider*
Affiliation:
Ph.D. Candidate in Economic Historym Faculty of History and Nuffield College, University of Oxford, New Road, Oxford OX1 1NF, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

This article introduces the Americas in the Great Divergence debate by measuring real wages in various North and South American cities between colonization and independence, and comparing them to Europe and Asia. We find that for much of the period, North America was the most prosperous region of the world, while Latin America was much poorer. We then discuss a series of hypotheses that can explain these results, including migration, the demography of the American Indian populations, and the various labor systems implemented in the continent.

Type
ARTICLES
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The Journal of Economic History , Volume 72 , Issue 4 , 14 December 2012 , pp. 863 - 894
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2012

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