Economists often assume that agricultural markets in history were competitive, and all producers received the same price. In contrast, most agricultural historians deem prices to differ among agents, according to their social status and «power». This paper tests these opposite views with a database of some 12,500 transactions for the São Paulo area in Brazil in the first decades of the 19th century. Prices received by farmers were positively related to total sales, a proxy for the size of the estate, and also to the share on the relevant market, which measures the market power. These results are consistent with the anecdotal evidence about the growing importance of large slave estates which, however, did not wipe out small household farms.

This article outlines the development of gender disparities in education for 28 Latin American and Caribbean countries for the period from 1880 to 1949, using age heaping techniques. We explore in particular the hypothesis of a U-shaped development of women's education during economic development, i.e., a decrease in gender equality at lower levels of overall education, and increasing gender equality at higher levels. For the downward sloping part, we find some evidence, although this part is relatively small. The upward sloping part is strongly confirmed. We also find that non-Hispanic Caribbean countries had substantially lower gender inequality rates than Latin American countries. A second major contribution is to document the development of average numerical abilities (of both genders) in these 28 countries.

The study of monetary phenomena in Argentina between 1810 and 1850 is complicated by the lack of historical sources and the coexistence of various currencies. According to previous research, the north of the country and specially Tucumán have been strongly influenced by Bolivian monetary policy and its currency devaluation throught the issue of coins Know as «feble». However, so far, a quantitative analysis of the circulation of money in this region for this period does not exist. This article shows that probate inventories have a great potential for advancing the exploration of these issues and presents an analysis of all the inventories available for Tucumán between 1820 and 1850. With this information the demand for money for this period is estimated and we confirm that money in circulation would have become more abundant in the 1840s, the period of highest levels of issue of «feble» coins, but without an obvious break with previous decades.

On the basis of a new quantitative data set which is varied, accurate and representative, today it is possible to correct previous shortcomings in order to obtain a solid historical picture of the Atlantic trade passing through the port of Bilbao in the mid-sixteenth century. In this paper we aim to explore both the macroeconomic and microeconomic aspects of Spanish-French trade, analysing, on the one hand, the volume, composition and «balance of trade» and, on the other, the scope and nature of trading enterprises of merchants operating in Bilbao, measurable by the size of their business, the concentration of trade and the amount of business carried out by traders on their own account, in association with other merchants or on behalf of these. We also highlight, once again, the enormous value of judicial sources in the study of trade in the Modern Age.

Using new public spending statistics for Spain and other various indicators we show that Spain and Britain suffered larger increases in public expenditure in the periods in which they fought each other and other countries. The British Exchequer spent much more than its Spanish counterpart, especially on the Army and Navy and debt repayment. This situation helps to explain why Britain emerged victorious against Spain in the majority of these wars and was a consequence of the political and institutional changes made in England from 1688 onwards, reducing budget constraint and allowing Britain to mobilise the necessary resources to become the leading world power. In Spain, however, the changes required to eliminate the country's history of bankruptcies and increase its spending capacity were not made.