Global agro-food trade grew strongly during the first globalisation. The increase in demand, the fall in trade costs, liberal policies and technological advances explain this expansion in trade. Within this context, this study analyses the formation and evolution of the international market of a special product: meat. It is a peculiar product because it is perishable. Furthermore, it is important to point out that the increase in its trade was based mostly on the strong demand in the United Kingdom, which acquired an almost monopsonist position, and also on the diffusion of mechanical refrigeration. This enabled the countries of the Río de la Plata, particularly Argentina, together with Australia and New Zealand to become world leaders in meat exports.

Many of today's central banks in Latin America were established in the interwar period. During the 1920s, most of them were designed under the influence of money doctors. The main mandate of these new institutions was to cope with inflation and provide exchange stability. This article analyses how these central banks responded to the onset of the Great Depression. I show that, in accordance with the requirements of the monetary regime, central banks initially acted to prevent capital outflows and to protect their gold reserves. This led to a credit drop to the private sector. Additional credit was made available once governments decided to intervene more actively in the economy, thereby disregarding the advice of money doctors. The central banks that were founded in the 1930s, and the reforms introduced to those already operating, were conceived to face the effects of the crisis.

The monetary policies of the decade studied had a direct influence on the evolution of real wages in Ecuador. The gold standard brought with it the increase in real wages until 1932. In February 1932, the Ecuadorian Government decided to abolish the gold standard which, together with a heavy public expenditure, produced a significant increase in money supply causing high levels of inflation. The evolution of real wages in Ecuador is similar to the evolution registered in Latin America in two important aspects: in both cases an upward trend in real wages can be observed once the international crisis began; after the increase in the purchasing power of wages, there is a decline. This study is the first research trying to understand the impact of the Great Depression in Ecuador through the evolution of real wages.

The objective of this article is to offer empirical evidence regarding the behaviour of the exports and relative prices of agricultural and food products from South America between 1900 and 1950. These were years of intense turbulence, which profoundly affected the countries of the region, generating a deep pessimism concerning the potentiality of the export-led development model. This study offers a new quantitative base to analyse the evolution of exports of agrifood products from South America between 1900 and 1938. The paper also offers a series for the evolution of the terms of trade in the region which takes into account in its construction, for the first time, the relative weights of South American exports of the distinct agricultural products.