The purpose of this paper is to determine trends in the wages and living standards of male agricultural labourers in Central Chile during the agrarian expansion, c. 1870-1930. We found that nominal wages increased eightfold; this is relevant because wage labour became the main rural labour regime in this period. Nominal wages rose steadily from the early 1870s until 1910, and with significant fluctuations thereafter, before plummeting with the Great Depression. Real wages also increased, but only slightly. Furthermore, during certain short periods, agricultural labourers' real wages were similar to or higher than those of low-skilled urban workers. However, the persistent gap between agricultural and non-agricultural wages was one of the causal factors of the outmigration of rural workers.

Desde hace algunos años se avanza en investigaciones sobre la evolución, causas y consecuencias de la desigualdad. En ese marco, la desigualdad salarial ha recibido gran atención dadas sus implicancias en relación con las políticas económicas, el crecimiento y el desarrollo. En este artículo se presentan nuevas series y análisis acerca de la desigualdad salarial de género en la industria de la ciudad de Buenos Aires entre 1903 y 1942. Se propone cubrir un área vacante en los estudios del mundo laboral femenino, siempre complejo, y aún más en la primera mitad del siglo XX. Esta aproximación es una aportación a los estudios sobre la desigualdad de género en Argentina, que permitirá comparaciones con otros espacios y regiones.

This paper applies modern economic theory to the ownership of enslaved men and women in the labour market context of Santiago, Chile from 1773 to 1810. We calculate the internal rate of return for slaves by gender and age as a way to understand the economic justification of slavery in an urban scenario where free labour was also readily available. Based on archival sources documenting the selling prices for slaves, prevailing wages for free labourers, maintenance costs and life expectancy, we argue that the ownership of enslaved men and women was a consistently profitable activity.

This paper examines the cost of living and evolution of welfare ratios among urban workers in Rio Grande's vila, the main commercial enclave of the southern Portuguese dominions in America. From diverse sources (military and hospital expenditure accounts, merchant credit bills from probate inventories), we build different consumption baskets to calculate their cost in seven benchmark years: 1772, 1792, 1802, 1809, 1816, 1819 and 1823. The evolution of cost of living shows a consistent upward trend during the period, which, however, does not substantially affect welfare ratios. In order to build regional comparisons, we follow Allen's methodology (2001) to estimate welfare ratios of skilled and unskilled workers in Rio Grande, Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The results of using this approach could be useful to adjust the methodology for further international comparisons.

This article deals with the trade of local merchandise in Santiago's district (Corregimiento) from 1773 to 1778, based on tributary sources. It contributes to the debate on the organization of the colonial internal market. The main traded merchandise, which represented about 80% of Chilean exports, came from the cattle exploitation that was developed in the haciendas around Santiago, whose cattle stocks were complemented from neighboring provinces in the Andes. The largest destination of this trade, in which big merchants acted together with a thousand minor merchants, were the retail channels and the artisan sectors supplying the population of Santiago. The impulse of this demand on the domestic market was so dynamic that it shows a degree of regional autonomy higher than what it is traditionally assumed for the Chilean economy in the late colonial period.

What was the degree of Brazil's regional inequality in living standards during the first decades of the 20th century? This paper presents municipal and state information on wages and prices in order to build welfare ratios for skilled and unskilled workers between 1912 and 1940. Despite the significant differences in nominal wages and costs of living throughout the country, real wage differentials remained lower than those estimated by earlier studies. Williamson (1999) argued that real wages in the Southeast were approximately six times higher than in the Northeast during the 1930s. The new evidence in this paper suggests that wages were on average only 1.5 times higher.

This paper analyses economic interaction in Castilla del Oro (Panama) at the beginning of the 16th century. By applying network analysis to fiscal records, the paper reconstructs, represents and tests business networks in the mining sector and how they became more complex with the arrival of emigrants and the appearance of new gold deposits. Results show a dynamic population with a high mobility degree despite the adverse geography and the inexistent communications.

This paper examines educational inequality in nine Latin American countries at the sub-country level from the 1950s to the 1990s. Educational inequality is measured by the difference in schooling years between the taller and the shorter half of the female population. Schooling years significantly increased across birth cohorts, especially before the 1980s, regardless of socio-economic stratum, region or country. However, educational inequality persisted. This finding reflects the achievement of the import substitution industrialisation era in educational development and its failure in mitigating the unequal distribution of education rooted in Latin America's social structure. Trade liberalisation and educational expansion are found to reduce educational inequality in capital and urban regions, whereas democracy and tax reform increased it. By contrast, educational inequality in rural regions was hardly influenced by policy changes. This finding urges future explorations into whether the persistence of educational inequality in rural regions is due to endemic social structure.

Regional economic differences in Colombia have persisted over time. The present study seeks to contribute to the debate on the territorial differences of the country through the identification of patterns of low coverage in both primary and secondary education between 1904 and 1958. The results, coinciding with other studies on income, show a tendency towards the formation of an educational cluster in the centre of the country and the existence of a human capital trap in the periphery. The results also suggest that there is a high correlation between fiscal capacity and enrolment rates. Finally, it can also be observed that territories with the highest enrolment rates are associated with high urban enrolment rates during the process of country-wide urbanisation.

This paper provides the first survey of slave prices for Santiago de Chile, c. 1773-1822. It also establishes the main determinants of slave prices during this period. We gathered and analysed over 3,800 sale operations. Our series confirm the usual inverted U-shape when prices are plotted against age, and that age was a very important determinant of slave prices. We also found that: female slaves were systematically priced over male slaves, quite contrary to what happened in most other markets; the prime age of Santiago slaves was 16-34, a younger range than for most other places; male slave prices moved in the same direction as real wages of unskilled workers; and the impact of the free womb law on market prices in 1811 was dramatic.

Apart from Appendini (1972) for 1900, there are, so far, no Mexican regional GDP estimates for the period before 1930. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap by presenting new Mexican regional GDP per capita estimates for several benchmark years between 1895 and 1930. The paper presents the methodology and sources used to estimate the new series, compares them with the previous estimates and offers a first long-term picture of Mexican regional per capita GDPs (1895-2010).

El artículo analiza los cambios en la estructura tributaria de Yucatán, México, durante la transición del régimen colonial a la fiscalidad liberal, de 1850 a 1902. Caracteriza sus etapas en función de la composición y el protagonismo alternativo de los impuestos directos y los impuestos indirectos en las rentas públicas. Durante los profundos cambios en la estructura económica, la tributación indirecta al consumo y los impuestos directos sobre los sectores secundario y terciario protegieron el crecimiento del sector productivo del henequén (1869-1882). Finalmente, el impuesto sobre el henequén no sustituyó a los ingresos indirectos. La modernización fiscal (1896-1902) equilibró la tributación directa de producto con los aplicados a sectores más urbanos, el secundario y las ventas del sector mercantil.

The settlement and expansion of the Portuguese colonies in South America were made possible by slave labour; however, the historical size of enslaved Native and African groups is largely unknown. This investigation compiles extant statistics on the population of «Brazil» by race and state for the pre-census period from 1545 to 1850, complementing them with headcount estimates based on sugar, gold, and coffee production; pre-contact indigenous populations; and trans-Atlantic slave voyages. The resulting panel of demographic data illustrates national and regional racial transitions encompassing the colonial era. Brazil's population was of Native descent but became predominantly African in the 18th century; people of European ancestry remained a minority for another 200 years.

Starting from the quantitative reconstruction of revenues and expenses of the Royal Treasury in the Yucatan province during the period 1801-1821, the paper shows the transition from an unbalanced regional fiscal structure that depended on colonial transfers (situados) to offset the deficit, to one self-sufficient structure in the context of the Independence War and the liberalism of the Cortes de Cadiz. An autonomy based on the indigenous capitation tax and the fiscal control of foreign trade that was made in the ports of the Yucatan Peninsula.

This essay shows that the growth of the economy of New Granada during the Eighteenth Century made an important impact on its political center, Santafé de Bogota, at least until 1808. Such prosperity was the result of a process of specialization and division of labor between different regions of the new kingdom, derived from the dynamics of gold mining that gave a strong impulse to Santafé's economy as a trade center for the handicraft production of Eastern Colombia and the fertile savanna surrounding it, which was a net food exporter. The Mint established in Santafé, which was a de facto monopoly, attracted merchants and miners who established there a center for the exchange of gold dust for coin.

The aim of this contribution is the presentation of the political conflicts between the Archbishop of Lima, Toribio Alfonso de Mogrovejo (1538–1606), together with his faithful collaborator the parish priest Alonso de Huerta, and the cathedral chapter. Though the chapter was a sort of senate or permanent council of the diocese clergy, it by no means acted as an institution involved in the missionary commitments of Archbishop Mogrovejo. On the contrary, its members rallied around against what they considered to be a violation of their economic privileges, and on several instances they denounced the Archbishop, as well as the parish priest Alonso de Huerta, arguing that they intruded in the internal rules of the chapter.