Socio-natural disasters remain underexplored events in economic history, even though they stress societies in several ways and are known for their relationship with institutional change. In this paper, we explore this issue showing that major earthquakes in Chile have become a window of opportunity for important fiscal reforms. Our findings indicate that there are two mechanisms to explain this relationship: first, reconstruction demands greater state expenditure and intervention; and second, the emergence of narratives that justify these reforms, such as patriotism and solidarity. However, data show that in the case of Chile, changes following disasters have had little impact on the overall tax structure of the country, and the historical preference for indirect taxes has been maintained, with limited power to impose taxes on high-income groups.

Latin America is one of the world's only regions to have witnessed a fall in income inequality during the 2000s. This paper evaluates the role fiscal policy played in this change. Recent scholarship has examined this in individual countries; lacking is a regional perspective. We examine the effects of nine fiscal instruments on income inequality in 17 countries between 1990 and 2014. Fiscal policy had a positive – albeit small – effect in reducing income inequality, especially from 2003, working best at the urban level. Public spending on education, personal income taxes and social contributions were especially instrumental in reducing income inequality.

This article provides a historical overview of the factors leading up to debt crises and the default mechanisms used by governments to solve them, ranging from repudiation and restructuring to inflation tax and financial repression. The paper also analyses the Spanish governments’ graduation to responsible public debt management under democracy and the last debt crisis starting in 2010. After analysing the evolution of the outstanding public debt, budget deficits, the Spanish economy's ability to borrow, the central government's debt affordability and the profile of public debt, the article concludes that the Spanish case confirms the main hypotheses of concerning international debt crises: short-term borrowing enhanced the risk of a debt crisis; insolvency problems arose when governments were unwilling or unable to repay debt; debt crises took place after large capital inflows; most outright defaults ended up being partial defaults; public debt level became unsustainable when it rose above 60-90 per cent of GDP; default trough inflation became commonplace when fiat money displaced coinage; financial repression was used as a subtle type of debt restructuring; and defaults endangered the creditworthiness of the Spanish Finance Ministry and forced disciplined fiscal policies.

This article discusses the evolution of the total and social public expenditure in Uruguay during the 20th century. It analyzes the growth path of the social public expenditure and the extent up to which it could be preserved from the cyclical economic downturns and the fiscal constraints of the Public Sector. The paper finds a low long-run elasticity of public spending to GDP – leading to a slow growth of social public expenditure and a remarkable procyclical pattern of total and social public expenditure. It also shows that social spending, especially education expenditure, has often been used as an instrument to curb budget deficits. No distinctive «fiscal regimes» for the period could be identified.

In this paper we examine a proposal regarding the organization of the system of primary education in Chile submitted by then Deputy Manuel Montt. This project represented a long overdue initiative in support of the diffusion of education in Chile and a radical way of viewing its organization. To the extent that this project included considerations regarding the funding of this system, it also seems relevant to the organization of Chile's fiscal framework. Although Montt's proposal was ultimately discarded, the related discussions represent an interesting setting for fundamental debates regarding the foundation of the fiscal system of 19th century Chile.