In late 1807, Brazil was still a part of the Portuguese empire. As a consequence of the outbreak of the Peninsular War, the Prince Regent and the court moved to Brazil, an amazing voyage planned as a way of safeguarding Portugal's sovereignty over her vast territories. When the royal ships arrived in Brazil, the first measure to be taken was the decree which opened up Brazilian ports to British commercial vessels, thus putting an end to the old system of exclusive colonial trading between Brazil and Portugal. This was indeed the very first sign of a much larger process of economic liberalisation that was shortly to follow. In this process, a special role was to be played by the science of political economy used as a rationale for economic change and ultimately serving as an instrument for political independence.

This paper studies the expansion of mass education in Latin America in the twentieth century from a global comparative perspective. The paper argues that expansion in terms of enrolment and attainment levels was quite impressive. A comparative analysis of the grade enrolment distribution demonstrates, however, that the rapid expansion of primary school enrolment did not correspond with an equally impressive improvement in educational quality. The persistently large tertiary education bias in public education spending suggests that part of the poor quality performance is related to a lack of fscal support for primary education and that the political economy explanation for educational underdevelopment, as advanced by Engerman, Mariscal and Sokoloff for the 19th century, still applied to Latin America during most of the 20th century.

Argentina's long term economic performance between 1880 and 2000 (convergence with the rich followed by divergence) can be understood in terms of the economic and political consequences of its peculiar factor endowments. Skewed endowments meant huge gains from trade during the First Globalization boom; but, conversely, disintegration of world commerce in the Depression was a heavier blow for such a naturally specialized economy. The extreme protectionism, characteristic of the post-war period, was related to the country's peculiar economic structure: comparative advantages in food production and disadvantages in (labor-intensive) manufacturing implied that closing the economy was a political winner, though it eventually hampered growth. The road to openness followed in the last quarter of the 20th century would have meant, correspondingly, an increase in inequality. Attempts to moderate it through debt accumulation and exchange rate appreciation destabilized the economy and contributed further to Argentina's comparative decline.

Between 1900 and 1935, the Argentine economy experienced important changes. Strongly specialized at first in the exportation of primary goods to European markets, the economy gradually turned to import substitution for the internal market. This transition was accompanied by increases in the number and scope of the functions performed by the State. In this paper we approach this evolution with an analysis of public investment in two critical areas: railways and water and drainage works, both of which resulted in the formation of the first public enterprises. Other aspects of public finances are also examined here: the evolution and structure of tax collection and public debt, both of which experienced an ever increasing complexity and scope.

Upon gaining independence, most Spanish American countries had accumulated a substantial external debt, and by 1829 each defaulted. It took decades for these countries to settle their debts and even longer for them to access new loans. We argue that a major factor influencing the pattern of debt service was the incidence of war. War created incentives for governments to channel scarce resources to «emergency» spending and domestic debt service, rather than to the repayment of the foreign debt. Interestingly, we detect an asymmetry between countries long in good standing with creditors and those that had only recently settled. Countries that had established a longer record of continuous debt service were far less likely to default in times of war. We also find that international wars were responsible for the largest effects.

After a brief description of the initial development of Venezuela's crude oil industry, this paper examines the impact the 1932 US tariff on crude oil imports had on the country. The US tariff on crude oil imports stabilised domestic crude oil prices but prevented consumers from benefting from lower prices in refned petroleum products. The large us international integrated crude oil companies gained from higher crude oil prices for their domestic production while supplying their european markets with mostly cheap crude oil from their newly developed Venezuelan oilfelds. The tariff increased the Venezuelan oil industry's vulnerability to international events because it narrowed the competitive edge it had over domestic us crude oil production. consequently, the Gómez dictatorship in Venezuela at the time became more dependent on the oil companies operating in the country since they could reduce production considerably, or even leave the country as quickly as they entered with a negative impact on government revenues.

This article analyses the impact of market forces and regulation in the Spanish telephone sector. It aims to explore the combined effects of the intersection between regulation of the monopoly, economic policy and entrepreneurial strategies, and hypothesizes that the regulation had a decisive influence on the development of the networks and services. Chronologically, the study covers the two decades of the transition from autarky to the Stabilization and Development Plans. In its double supply-demand approach, the article quantifies investment as an expression of supply and reviews the ground rules within which these two market forces developed. Finally, it examines the situation of shortages that the intervention created, and explains the intervention in prices from the perspective of the trade-off between its use as an element of stabilization and the bargaining power of the sector. The conclusions reflect the impact of the regulation and highlight its more complex aspects.

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 paper proposes a detailed measurement of the agricultural development of the island of Majorca from the late sixteenth century to the midnineteenth century, with an emphasis on the products which made up the bulk of the island's agricultural production. The authors have organized most of the existing databases in the island's archives and have also incorporated quantitative and qualitative material from their own research and that of other colleagues. Due to their quality and regularity, the data are among the richest known for pre-industrial Europe. These sources lead to some conclusions which link with recent debates in European economic history concerning the calculation of economic growth in economies for periods before statistics were kept. The text presents a methodological analysis covering almost 80 per cent of agricultural production of the island of Majorca and leaves conclusions to be supplemented by further studies of the manufacturing and service sectors.

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 degree of development of Spanish agriculture at the end of the XIX century and the beginning of XX is a controversial issue. In this respect the study of the integration of the domestic market could provide new evidence since the degree of the market integration can be considered an indicator of economic development. By using regional wheat prices this paper analyzes the Spanish market integration between 1891 and 1905. With this aim in mind we employ the usual cointegration approach as well as an alternative method based on spectral analysis that allows taking into consideration the existence of no synchronized cycles.

This work focuses on the origins of the Fierro Group. Ildefonso Fierro (1882–1961) was one of the most prominent businessmen of Franco's regime. Fierro's case study presents two features that distinguish it from other Spanish family firms founded in the first half of the twentieth century: its high degree of diversifcation and its peculiar financial history. Prior to the commencement of the Franco dictatorship, Fierro had managed to form a diversifed family business and had bought a bank to finance his industrial activity. This article analyzes how he achieved this and compares his path with that of the Japanese Zaibatsu.

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.