Economies from Independence to

Industrialization
Humberto Morales Moreno, Miguel Reyes Hernández

LAST MODIFIED: 25 SEPTEMBER 2018

DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199766581-0198

Introduction

Between the fall of Spanish rule in continental America and the emergence of Latin America’s big economic growth (1821–1940), the
gap in per capita gross domestic product (GDP) compared with North Atlantic economies was evident. Mainstream economic history of
the various Latin American countries and of the so-called North Atlantic identify the existence of this gap since the time of colonial rule
and continuing through the advent of the independence movements and revolutions of the 19th century. In any case, this disparity was
not born in the 20th century. One of the reasons why the literature on low economic growth gained in importance after World War II was
the establishment of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) by the United Nations. CEPAL fostered
surveys and the establishment of archives with economic and statistical data for an important group of Latin American countries.
Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Venezuela evolved as strategic geographical regions with great factor endowments for Latin
American trade with European economies at the end of the war. One of the first tasks of CEPAL was to improve political economies in
these countries so that they might narrow the gap in industrialization. This bibliography distinguishes a remarkable continuity in the road
to industrial development in Latin America: the role of the post-independence state as a stakeholder in efforts toward economic growth
and development. Especially in the cases of Mexico and Brazil—and later Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Cuba, and Colombia—we offer
three main organizing principles in the study of economic evolutions: (1) Precocious Attempts at Takeoff, 1821–1880; (2) The Latin
American Economies in the Age of Exports, 1880–1930; and (3) The Road to Industrialization: State-Led Production, ISI, and CEPAL
Overviews, 1930–1980. This bibliography attempts to find a balance between the “economic growth” school influenced by Kuznets and
Rostow, as well as some other Latin American schools in CEPAL overviews, and economic and social history monographs by scholars
in Latin American universities and research centers with Keynesian, Marxist, and structural approaches.

General Overviews

Few single-authored or multiauthored works of general synthesis can be found before the 1990s and this is because the “new economic
history” approach issuing from the United States was unfamiliar to regional scholars and, secondly, because Marxist, Annales school,
and CEPAL influences were predominant in the 1960s and 1970s. Cardoso and Pérez Brignoli 1979 is a clear example of a Marxist
approach with structural analysis, while Chevalier 1993 represents the work of a French scholar who influenced Mexican colonial
studies since the 1950s. At the turn of the 21st century works by scholars trained in the United States and Europe began to focus on
the influence of British trade in the Americas and the path-dependence models that emerged mainly in South America (Mahoney 2003).
The economic growth model and long-run analysis are demonstrated by Williamson 2009 and Bértola and Ocampo 2013. Prados de la
Escosura 2005 discusses the “lost decades” as a relative process in which backwardness is connected with the regional market of low
integration and autocracy that resulted in regional disparities throughout the 19th century. This does not mean that economic growth
was absent from the entire region. The edited companion Bulmer-Thomas, et al. 2006 should also be consulted, along with Cárdenas,
et al. 2000, a companion on the economic history of Latin America.
Bértola, Luis, and José Antonio Ocampo. El Desarrollo económico de América Latina desde la independencia. Mexico City:
FCE, 2013.
This important overview, in the manner of economic growth studies, includes specific historical analysis of the three periods of per
capita GDP changes in the region: the relative decrease between 1821–1870, the new growth between 1870 and 1980, and the decline
after 1980.

Bulmer-Thomas, Victor. “The Struggle for National Identity from Independence to Midcentury.” In The Economic History of
Latin America since Independence. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
This foundational study examines the failure of the region to close the gap with the United States in GDP and living standards and
explores the reasons. It contains a wealth of material that was new at the time and which laid the groundwork for new research in this
area.

Bulmer-Thomas, Victor, John H. Coatsworth, and Roberto Cortés Conde, eds. The Cambridge Economic History of Latin
America. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Bibliographical essays that are important across countries and periods.

Cárdenas, Enrique, José Antonio Ocampo, and Rosemary Thorp, eds. An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Latin
America. 3 vols. New York: Palgrave, 2000.
Important companion for the 20th century, especially for periodization of the export era and the state-led production system after the
1929 economic crash.

Cardoso, Ciro F. S., and Héctor Pérez Brignoli. Historia Económica de América Latina. Barcelona: Crítica, 1979.
Still useful for a quick overview of comparative structural analysis of “late capitalism” in Latin America with an original combination of
economic, political, and social studies highlighting the early role of Latin American states in their movement toward modern capitalist
economies.

Chevalier, François. L’Amérique Latine (de l’indépendance à nos jours). 2d ed. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1993.
As former professor at the Sorbonne and a pioneer of economic and social history of late colonial rule in Mexico, Chevalier offers a
work of general synthesis on the main Latin American countries, covering economics, politics, and social and cultural evolutions from
the pre-Columbian period to contemporary times. The background of primary sources and surveys for each country are very useful for
further research.

Mahoney, James. Long-Run Development and the Legacy of Spanish America. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
2003.
Mahoney argues that the origins of hierarchy in Spanish and Portuguese America built a path-dependent legacy. This overview outlines
competing hypotheses to explain a strange relationship between development in the more isolated colonial regions and the stagnation
found close to the core of the empire.
Prados de la Escosura, Leandro. Colonial Independence and Economic Backwardness in Latin America. Working Papers of
the Global Economic History Network (GEHN), 10/05. London: Department of Economic History, London School of Economics
and Political Science, 2005.
Prados explores the different origins of Latin American post-independence economic decay. This overview shows how economic growth
was no more absent from the early attempts at modernization and development than from that of many Asian and continental European
economies during the long-run 19th century.

Weaver, Frederick S. Latin America in the World Economy: Mercantile Colonialism to Global Capitalism. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 2000.
This overview focuses on the birth of free trade and the struggles of the Americas during the postcolonial period. It compares Spanish
America and Brazil, highlighting the different impact of British trade in the two Americas.

Williamson, Jeffrey G. Five Centuries of Latin American Income Inequality. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic
Research, 2009.
This is another foundational study from the economic growth school and a mixture of institutional analysis. Williamson questions
inequality in Latin America as a gap in institutional roots that originated during Spanish rule and was reinforced by economic elites.
Contributors Engerman and Sokoloff argue that high levels of income inequality stimulated a rent-seeking system, which was
incompatible with economic growth.

Edited Collections

There is a very important tradition of edited works on Latin American economies especially in English speaking centers and universities.
Almost all the economic sectors and branches have been analyzed by scholars under the guidance of specialists. Duncan and
Rutledge 1977 is a very good example. Four main academic institutions have sponsored these collections: Oxford, Harvard,
Cambridge, and CEPAL. Especially important is Coatsworth 1998. The authors in this volume offer a focus on agriculture, economic
history, economic growth, industrialization, living standards, and persistent inequality. Bethell 1986 explores a more classical range of
political, cultural and social history topics for Latin America. It is a strong reference for scholars beginning research on general topics
covering most of the countries in the region. Bulmer-Thomas, et al. 2006 highlights more specific issues in economic history that are not
included in Bethell 1986.

Bértola, Luis, and Pablo Gerchunoff, eds. Institucionalidad y Desarrollo Económico en América latina. Santiago, Chile:
CEPAL, AECID, 2011.
This companion includes a mix of authors with various viewpoints, sources, and frameworks. Cuba, Central America, Mexico, Chile,
Argentina, Colombia, Bolivia, Brazil and Peru are the focus. The text on Mexico by Moreno-Brid and Ross is the best structured in the
long-run analysis focusing on development.

Bethell, Leslie, ed. The Cambridge History of Latin America. 6 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
A very good introductory survey connecting social and political problems with economic growth in different periods. Accurate attention is
paid to the period 1870–1930. The collaborators focus on a “golden age,” when the export-led system brought fiscal benefits to South
American economies.
Bulmer-Thomas, Victor, John Coatsworth, and Roberto Cortés Conde, eds. Cambridge Economic History of Latin America. 2
vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
This Cambridge edition provides economic analysis and surveys that are not found in Bethell 1986. Volume 1 explores the colonial era
and the so-called “short 19th century” and Volume 2 the “long 20th century.”

Coatsworth, John H., ed. Latin America and the World Economy since 1800. The David Rockefeller Center Series on Latin
American Studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1998.
Fifteen essays with common application of the new economic history view to Latin American economies since 1800. The authors
combine “neoclassical” economic theory and quantitative methods comparing GDP of the region with the Atlantic economies.

Duncan, K., and I. Rutledge, eds. Land and Labour in Latin America. Essays on the Development of Agrarian Capitalism in the
Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
A strong companion on agrarian and peasant economics in Latin America. Useful for understanding the ranching and estate systems in
the Americas and their transformation in the 20th century. An introductory survey.

Ocampo, José Antonio, and Jaime Ross, eds. Oxford Handbook of Latin American Economics. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2011.
Very useful collection with top scholars writing on Latin American economics and economic development in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Coverage of key factors affecting these economies. Main topics: underdevelopment, fiscal policy, global markets, natural resources,
productivity, income inequality, poverty, and economic insecurity.

Salvatore, R. D., John Coatsworth, and A. E. Challú, eds. Living Standards in Latin American History: Height, Welfare and
Development, 1750–2000. Cambridge, MA: Rockefeller Centre for Latin American Studies, Harvard University Press, 2010.
Strong collection on human biology and economics in the long-run Latin American history. Anthropometrics is a very useful tool as a
proxy of measurement of living standards and economic welfare absent other economic indexes, such as real wages or income
distribution.

Primary Sources, Data Banks

A number of surveys and data banks covering the period of late colonial rule to the present (2010) have been published over the past
forty years, enabling students and scholars to access statistical series, data banks, time-series, and focused regional economic
analysis. The first important guide, Cortés Conde and Stein 1977, presents extensive data and historiographical discussion on the “neo-
colonialism” of the 19th century and of the region’s colonial inheritance in terms of modern economics. A relatively unknown survey is
the French text Rolland 1992, whose author was a former student of Sorbonee professors Francois Chevalier and Francois Xavier
Guerra. Rolland’s work offers useful tools for finding information on Latin American institutions, agencies, and data banks. CEPAL 2009
provides key research tools for the second half of 20th century. The Maddison Project 2007 is a very useful resource for statistical data
between regional economies. Bértola 2015 is a recent survey.
Bértola, Luis, ed. Base de Datos de Historia Económica de América Latina Montevideo-Oxford. Montevideo, Uruguay:
Universidad de la República -BID, 2015.
This work is the product of an ambitious program between the Universidad de la República in Uruguay, an Oxford database project, and
the Inter-American Development Bank. It presents economic databases and statistical surveys on Latin American economies in the
long run. Information on regional disparities and macroeconomic approaches are available for students and researchers.

Bértola, L., M. Hernández, and S. Siniscalchi. Un índice histórico de desarrollo humano de América Latina y algunos países de
otras regiones: metodología, fuentes y bases de datos. Montevideo, Uruguay: Programa de historia económica y social,
Unidad Multidisciplinaria, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República, 2010.
Influenced by Amartya Sen on capabilities and economic development, this team coached by Luis Bértola at La Universidad de la
República in Uruguay built a new human development index adjusted to Latin American realities. Sources and databases can improve
deep research on these areas by students.

CEPAL. América latina y el Caribe: series históricas de estadísticas económicas 1950–2008. No. 37. Santiago, Chile:
Cuadernos Estadísticos, 2009.
Statistics data on the macroeconomics of the region over the last sixty years. Looks at Excel records and the comparative evolution of
US dollars indexed series.

Cortés Conde, Roberto, and Stanley J. Stein. Latin America: A Guide to Economic History 1830–1930. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1977.
This bibliographical essay is a general account of six Latin America countries. The authors cover ten main topics: references,
demography, labor conditions and economic living standards, institutions, economic cycles and macroeconomics, foreign trade,
regional economies, agriculture, manufacturing industries, extractive industries and transports.

Fernández-Arias, Eduardo. Productivity and Factor Accumulation in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Database (2014
Update). Washington, DC, United States: Research Department, Inter-American Development Bank, 2014.
This essay covers a traditional historiographical approach of Argentinian scholars throught Total Productivity of the Factors. Useful tool
for following the economic cycle of capital, land, and work in the long-run series of economic growth in the region.

Maddison, Angus. Contours of the World Economy, 1–2030 AD: Essays in Macro-economic History. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2007.
Summary of statistics on rich and poor economies throughout the world. The book is divided into three major topic areas: factors of
economic development in Africa, Asia, Europe, and America; macroeconomic tools of analysis since the 17th century; prospects for the
world economy by 2030.

The Maddison Project: Global data on economic performance over time.

Very useful tool for making comparisons between economies in the long run.
Mitchell, B. R. International Historical Statistics: The Americas, 1750–2005. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993.
Strong source of comparative historical data including statistics through the year 1993. International Historical Statistics (IHS) explores
the forces leading to current global events. Very good tool for students and researchers in the field of anthropology, business
management, economics and finance, international studies, sociology, and urban studies.

Rolland, Denis. Amérique Latine. Guide des organisations internationales et de leurs publications. Paris: L’Harmattan-
Sorbonne, 1992.
Complete guide to Latin American social, cultural, and economic institutions and the various publications of each organization, a very
useful resource for improving research on Latin American international relations.

Technology in Latin America’s Past and Present: New Evidence from the Patent Records
Very important resource on evolution of patents and industrial patrimony in Latin America.

Precocious Attempts at Takeoff, 1821–1880

Latin America experienced an age of manufacturing in three historical stages. In some countries or regional economies, there were
precocious attempts at establishing an industrial system. The first stage included silver mining and plantation economies, which
attempted to build an industrial system with relative autonomy from British trade. This was the case of Mexico, along with some regions
of Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia, and was noteworthy for the economic integration of Cuba and its sugar mills During the second
stage the rapid integration of Latin American’s economies in the early stages globalization brought about an age of exports. Mexico
remained an exceptionto this trend because the Mexican Revolution laid the groundwork for a modern state. An entrepreneurial
desarrollo hacia adentro (inner economic development) resulted when South America and the Caribbean established export-led model
in agro-mining. In the third stage state-led production became the model in nearly all Latin American countries. In this last stage CEPAL
played an important role in industrialization through the ISI model.

From Colonial Heritage to Lost Decades

Jean Batou’s collection of readings on the early attempts at industrialization in the periphery—Between Development and
Underdevelopment The Precocious Attempts at Industrialization of the Periphery, 1800–1870 (Geneva: Droz, 1991). This collection
proposed a new point of view about internal economic growth and development in “late capitalism” economies with attempts to reach
the Rostow’s stages of economic growth. Mexico, especially cities like Mexico City, Puebla, Orizaba, Córdoba, and the Bajío landscape,
were exceptional economies that did not experience the “lost decades” of other regional manufacturing economies. Quito,
Cochabamba, Lima and Cuzco, São Paulo, and Cordoba, followed this path, also. Between 1835 and 1880 Mexico and other regions of
the South of America, including the sugarmills of Cuba, organized an industrial manufacturing system in an otherwise underdeveloped
landscape.

Overview

Overview works analyze independence as the main way to territorial fragmentation and the lack of fiscal and institutional administrative
control of the regional economies. Central America separated from Mexico by 1823, and the new Central American Federation survived
until 1838 and led to the creation of five new countries in 1839 (El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala). By
1830, La Gran Colombia, comprising Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador, broke up into three countries, Venezuela, New
Granada (present-day Colombia and Panama), and Ecuador. The Peru and Bolivia union (new republics in 1824 and 1825,
respectively) that was built in 1836 collapsed in 1839. Mexico lost half its territory by the Mexican War in 1847–1848. The Viceroyalty of
the River Plate became three separate countries: Uruguay (independent in 1828), Paraguay, and Argentina. Scholars attempt to explain
how these fragmented new nations could build an era of manufactures amid the demise of the ancient regime and largest monetary
union and fiscal structure in existence. The challenge was to create a new fiscal and monetary system and a domestic financial market.
Chronic deficits occurred during the first half of the 19th century as tax revenues stagnated and military expenses increased. Fiscal
policies were subordinated to military and political caudillos and pronunciamientos at the expense and dilution of tax administration. All
these internal factors would be obstacles to the emergence of modern financial markets throughout Latin America, at least in the first
half of 19th century. As the companion Liehr 1989 shows, the develop of the national state, on it’s first period, was framed by diverse
political and economic proposals and some regions like Mexico faced the paradox of a State finance penury but private silver mining
monopolies in the Spaniards and Criollos hands as agiotistas and main credit suppliers. Haber 1997 and Coatsworth 2008 follow an
institutional economic point of view try in assessing the administrative failure of the young republics, or in the case of Brazil to improve
low costs of transaction and low transport costs in this new economic geography under the liberal capitalism. Prados de La Escosura
2009 relativizes the “lost decades” in the case of Mexico, Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, and later Argentina and Chile with the persistent
economic GDP growth of those countries. While less that the Atlantic North in was nevertheless better than the average for continental
Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Coatsworth, J. H. “Inequality, Institutions and Economic Growth in Latin America.” Journal of Latin American Studies 40.3
(2008): 545–569.
Analyzing economic policies in some Latin American countries the author concludes that Iberian practices in the American colonies
under conditions of imperial weakness reinforced the route to inequality across the Americas. There was no correlation with colonial
economic performance apparently, but it mattered because it determined the extent of elite resistance to institutional modernization
after independence.

Gelman, Jorge. “Los cambios en la economía atlántica entre los siglos XVIII y XIX. Desarrollo capitalista, globalización y
desigualdad en América Latina.” Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos (29 January 2014).
This essay discusses the meaning of the atlantic economy between the XVIII and XIX centuries and the role of Latin America in this
integration and its disparities.

Haber, Stephen. How Latin America Fell Behind: Essays on the Economic Histories of Brazil and Mexico, 1800–1914. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 1997.
This volume compares two major economies of Latin America and tries to determine the economic impact of independence on
economic growth in each country. The paradigm of this collection is the neo-classical approach and neo-institutional analysis.

Herranz-Loncán, Alfonso. “Transport Technology and Economic Expansion: The Growth Contribution of Railways in Latin
America before 1914.” Revista de Historia Económica/Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History (New Series)
20.1 (March 2014): 13–45.
Classical discussion of contribution of railways to economic growth before 1914 in four Latin American economies with large railway
systems (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Uruguay) using growth accounting techniques.

Liehr, Reinhard, ed. América Latina en la época de Simón Bolivar. (La formación de las economías nacionales y los intereses
económicos europeos 1800–1850). Berlin: Colloquium Verlag, 1989.
Important volume where scholars and students can get Spanish-language access to authored thesis on the decline of regional
economies after independence and on the early attempts to build an industrial system.

Llopis, E., and Carlos Marichal, eds. Latinoamérica y España, 1800–1850: Un crecimiento económico nada excepcional.
Madrid and Mexico City: Marcial Pons-Instituto Mora, 2009.
This volume points out the “colonial heritage” of Spanish America and the economic development of the new nations in the first half of
19th century. Was the economic decline of Spanish America a consequence of independence or a colonial institutional inheritance?

Powelson, M. “19th Century Latin America Imperialism from a Global Perspective.” History Compass 9.10 (2011): 827–843.
By the second half of the 19th century most Latin American nations had replaced direct European control with independent
governments with mostly stable boundaries. Despite this, Latin American nations battled a new imperialism defined by an economic
dominance which Europe and the United States exerted on the Latin American economies.

Prados De La Escosura, L. “Lost Decades? Economic Performance in Post-Independence Latin America.” Journal of Latin
American Studies 41.2 (2009): 279–307.
This is a comparative perspective. On average, per capita income grew in Latin America, and although the region fell behind compared
with the United States and Europe, it improved its position relative to the rest of the world. The term “lost decades” appears an
unwarranted depiction of the 1820–1870 period.

Mexico

Literature on the Mexican path to industrialization is far-reaching and with different points of view. The colonial heritage influenced some
scholars as demonstrated by Chávez Orozco 1938 and Semo Calev 1973, which highlight Spanish feudal rule (1521–1821) as the main
issue to understanding the backwardness and lack of industrialization in the first half of the 19th century. Cardoso 1980 was the first
Marxist historian to discuss institutional changes in liberal Mexico between 1824 and 1857 in constitutions that prepared this transition
to an industrial economy. Coatsworth 1990 and Cárdenas Sánchez 2003 argue, respectively, that the origins of a backwards Mexican
economy can be traced end of the 18th century;, and that it is a consequence of the independence war and a reserve crisis. Trujillo and
Contreras 2003 and Morales Moreno 2005 both illustrate the early attempts to achieve an industrial system and its limitations.

Bairoch, Paul. Le Tiers-Monde dans l’impasse. Le démarrage économique du XVIIIe au XXe siècle. Paris: Gallimard, 1971.
Bairoch’s classic studies are important for analyzing the Mexican attempts to create an industrial society. The peripheral areas of “late
capitalism” followed an original way to development with more or less autonomy from the core. Mexico was in a kind of trade-off in the
long-run 19th century.

Cárdenas Sánchez, Enrique. ¿Cuándo se atrasó la economía mexicana? La economía mexicana en el largo siglo XIX. Madrid:
Nueva Fundación Ortega y Gasset, 2003.
Enrique Cárdenas discusses the “long 19th century” in Mexico, in contrast to Leandro Prados and Jeffrey Williamson’s “short 19th
century.” Contrastively, the author presents a periodization of the origins of backwardness in Mexico since Bourbon Reforms (1765–
1810) and its consequences in the macroeconomic depression of the first half of 19th century.
Cárdenas Sánchez, Enrique. El largo curso de la economía mexicana. De 1780 a nuestros días. Mexico City: FCE-COLMEX,
2015.
This recent book updates the debate that the author initiated in his previous work which extended to the presidential electoral year of
2012.

Cardoso, Ciro, ed. México en el siglo XIX. Historia económica y de la estructura social. Mexico City: Nueva Imagen, 1980.
Trained in the tradition of l’ École des Annales, but particularly in the current Marxist approach of Pierre Vilar, Ciro Cardoso’s companion
was the outcome of his fruitful work at Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia of Mexico about the Mexican economy in the 19th
century.

Chávez Orozco, Luis. Historia Económica y Social de México. Ensayo de interpretación. Mexico City: Botas, 1938.
(Economic and social history of Mexico.) Educated in the Marxist political tradition of the Third International, Chávez Orozco’s 1938
work analyzes Mexico’s transition from feudalism to capitalism.

Coatsworth, John H. Los orígenes del atraso en la economía mexicana. Siglos XVIII-XIX. Mexico City: Alianza Editorial, 1990.
This is a compilation of some of the author’s classic essays that were first published in English-language reviews. Mexican
backwardness is attributed to institutional factors such as property rights, high costs in transpor, autarchy, and lack of monetary and
credit markets among other obstacles.

Kuntz Ficker, Sandra, ed. Historia económica general de México, De la Colonia a nuestros días. Mexico City: El Colegio de
México, 2010.
Good bibliographies for each chapter. Important tool as a guide for Mexican economic history.

Semo Calev, Enrique. Historia del Capitalismo en México. 1521–1763. Mexico City: ERA, 1973.
In the author’s view New Spain was the Spanish American laboratory of a peculiar way to an underdeveloped capitalism. Here we find,
according to the Marxist influence on “transitions from feudalism to capitalism,” how the mercantile silver mining economy coexisted
with a feudal political control of politics, labor, and society.

Trujillo, Mario, and Mario Contreras. Formación empresarial, fomento industrial y compañías agrícolas en el México del siglo
XIX. Mexico City: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 2003.
An edited collection that presents research on capital assets and entrepreneurship in the second half of the 19th century in Mexico and
the early attempts toward an agro-industrial economy.

Morales Moreno, Humberto. “El carácter marginal y arrendatario del sistema de fábrica en paisajes agrarios mexicanos, 1780–
1880.” Anuario de Estudios Americanos 62.2 (July–December 2005): 163–185.
This essay shows the agrarian origins of the modern industrial system in Mexico in a longue durée capital accumulation coming from
estate businesses and regional elites emerging during late colonial rule. Discussion of the new foreign investors in early attempts to
take off.

Central America and Caribbean

Central America and the Caribbean were probably the Latin American regions closest to the dependency models of late industrial
capitalism in the Americas. Cuba developed sugar mills and railroads while Costa Rica develped coffee plantations. In general,
economic history textbooks for these regions in the 19th century are very few and more focused on political and social overviews than
on economic analysis.

Overview

The mainstream of this period covers the failure of the Central America federal project of 1838–1839 that ended with the formation of
five new disintegrated nations: Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Costa Rica. Hispanic Caribbean normally is not
analyzed as these regions were under Spanish rule up to 1898–1902. Cuba is an exceptional case as sugar mills and railroads were
strategic for the new consumption revolution in Europe in the 19th century. Woodward 1999 is a very good overview of this founding of
the Central American nations. Pérez Brignoli 1985 follows path dependence theories on the export economies in Central America.

Cardoso, Ciro. “Latinoamérica y el Caribe (Siglo XIX): La problemática de la transición al capitalismo dependiente.” In
Ensayos sobre el desarrollo económico de México y América Latina: 1500–1975. Edited by Enrique Florescano, 315–368.
Mexico City: FCE, 1979.
A summary of the debate on the dependency theory and late capitalism facing the new economic history institutional approach. Once
again Central America and the Caribbean were more attached to this view but Cardoso is clear that this model is less useful for
continental countries such as Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina.

Pastor, Rodolfo. Historia de Centroamérica. Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1988.

A concise history of Central America focusing on the political struggles after the failure of the Federation and peace negotiations, and
the conflicts of the late 1970s.

Pérez Brignoli, Héctor. Breve Historia de Centroamérica. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1985.
This book covers the rise of the export-led Central American economies after the failure of the Federation in 1838. It is a summary of
political, cultural, social, and economic history of the five countries of the ancient “Reino de Guatemala.” Costa Rica is seen here as an
exceptional case of liberal reforms and democracy until 1910.

Pérez Brignoli, Héctor, and Ciro Cardoso. Centroamérica y la economía occidental (1520–1930). San José: Universidad de
Costa Rica, 1977.
With an introduction by Enrique Floescano this book tries to explain what kind of economic dependency was built in Central America
after independence and why mono-agricultural exports (coffee and tropical fruits) shaped the future of this “late” integration of regional
economies to Western economics in the “age of manufactures” (1821–1880).
Woodward, Ralph Lee. Central America: A Nation Divided. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
This edition updates the coverage of the civil wars and the restoration of peace in Central America. The text analyzes the substantial
changes that have occurred in the economic and social arenas as Central American states have turned increasingly to neoliberal
policies.

Panama

Panama offers a very interesting approach to foreign imperialism projects in Latin America. French, British, and lately American
informal imperialism pushed this federal state of Great Colombia to independence and later, in 1903, to build the Panama Canal.
Sabonge and Sánchez 2009 gives a good explanation of this story until today. Kalmanovitz 2012 analyzes the regional economic
growth to 1886.

Kalmanovitz, Salomón. “El federalismo y la fiscalidad del estado soberano de Panamá, 1850–1886.” Revista de Economía
Institucional 14.27 (2012): 99–145.
A summary of the geopolitical reasons why Panama became independent from Colombia in 1903. Struggles between federalism and
the economic regional growth in Panama from 1853 to 1886 (thanks to an early railroad system) and the establishment of the centralist
Colombian Constitution of 1886, were in the mind of the separatists.

Sabonge, Rodolfo, and Ricardo Sánchez. El Canal de Panamá en la economía de américa Latina y el Caribe. Santiago, Chile:
CEPAL, Estudios, 2009.
A concise history of the Panama Canal and the institutional changes between the first and second phases ofglobalization and US
control from 1905 to 2000 and the actual maritime regulations.

Haiti

Today Haiti is one of the most dependent economies in the Americas, but it was the first example of radical political independence in
Latin America. Haggerty 1991 offers a an accurate approach to these issues. Bernardin 2006 tries to highlight the scope of the state
and its influence in the failure of the Haitian economy.

Bernardin, Ernst. Histoire économique et sociale d’Haïti de 1804 à nos jours: l’état complice et la faillite d’un système. 3d ed.
Port Au Prince, Haiti: Editions Imprimatur, 2006.
A concise history of Haiti highlighting the political failures and the economic consequences in the long-run 19th and 20th centuries.

Gros, Jean-Germain. “Haiti: The Political Economy and Sociology of Decay and Renewal.” Latin American Research Review
35.3 (2000): 211–226.
The main thesis of this author is that development in Haiti has continually been impeded through the decades, making Haiti one of the
most dependent countries in the world. Haiti has repeatedly ranked among the least developed countries within the global community.
Unable to meet the basic standards of development.
Haggerty, Richard A. République Dominicaine et Haïti: Études de pays. Division fédérale de recherches, Port au Prince, Haiti.
Bibliothèque du Congrès, 1991.
A very important book for understanding the paradoxes of the first African population in the world to become a republic and the second
nation-state in the Americas. A short economic history that describes this sugar and coffee plantation economy through the 19th
century.

Von Grafenstein, Johanna. “Haití en el siglo XIX: desde la revolución de esclavos hasta la ocupación norteamericana.” Istor.
Revista de Historia Internacional 12.46 (2011): 3–32.
An analysis of Haiti in the 19th century in Haiti following independence in 1804 and the final US intervention in 1915. The weight of
political revolts and failure to improve economic development result in Haiti’s dependency on the international commodities market.

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rican economic history is very poor before 1898. Cortés Zavala 2008 has been a pioneer in cultural, economic, and social
studies for the period before and after 1898.

Cortés Zavala, María Teresa. Economía, cultura e institucionalización de la ciencia en Puerto Rico, siglo XIX. Mexico City:
UMSNH, 2008.
A single-authored book about economic, social, and cultural development of Puerto Rico in the 19th century and the independence
period. It highlights the economic route from slave plantation system to a free labor agriculture system and the role of education and
science diffusion in the island before and after independence.

Ruíz, Ángel L. “Un breve recuento histórico del desarrollo económico de Puerto Rico a partir de 1898.” Revista Homines 20–
21.1–2 (2000): 238–262.
A short summary on the rise of economic development of Puerto Rico at the time of the Spanish American War and late independence.

Solá, José O. “Colonialism, Planters, Sugarcane and the Agrarian Economy of Caguas, Puerto Rico between the 1890s and
1930.” Agricultural History 85.3 (2011): 349–372.
This article offers an in-depth analysis of the regional economic elites in Caguas and their influence after independence and the first
civil state rulers before political integration with the United States.

Cuba

Cuba is an exceptional case of of an early attempt to industrialize between the time of Spanish rule and independence. Moreno
Fraginals 1978 was the first Cuban historian to highlight the industrial revolution that occurred in the sugar mills duringthe first half of
the 19th century. To understand the plantation economy’s move toward industrialization, Barcia 1987 is key. Finally, García Molina 2005
gives an overview of Cuban economic growth from Spanish rule to Socialism.
Barcia, María del Carmen. Burguesía esclavista y abolición. Havana, Cuba: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1987.
An important book by Barcia and a classic for understanding slavery and the plantation economy in Cuba in the long-run 19th century.

García Molina, Jesús M. La economía cubana desde el siglo xiv al xx: del colonialismo al socialismo con mercado. Mexico
City: CEPAL, 2005.
This paper was financed by CEPAL in Mexico in order access a summary of the evolution of the Cuban economy from colonial period
up to the new reforms of the 1990s. The author calls this reforms “socialism with market orientation.”

Moreno Fraginals, Manuel. El Ingenio. El complejo económico-social cubano del azúcar. 3 vols. Havana, Cuba: Editorial de
Ciencias Sociales, 1978.
The classic book on sugar mills in America. The three volumes describe the sugar industry in Cuba, including a detailed description of
Centrales and enterprises, and geographical landscape. The third volume is particularly useful for statistics data, sugar industry topics,
and primary source references.

Santamaría García, Antonio. “El progreso del azúcar es el progreso de cuba. La industria azucarera y la economía cubana a
principios del siglo xx desde el análisis de una fuente: el azúcar.” Revista Industrial Técnico-Práctica. Caribbean Studies 42.2
(2014): 71–114.
Santamaría García is a very well known scholar writing papers and books on the economic conditions of slavery in Cuba and how the
island fell behind before independence and during the republican period from 1902 to 1959.

Scott, Rebecca. La emancipación de los esclavos en Cuba: la transición al trabajo libre. 1860–1899. Mexico City: FCE, 1989.
Important book discussing the slave population in Cuba before emancipation and its impact in the economic plantation system.

South America

The early attempts at industrialization in South America were focused oncountries and economic regions that developed a
manufacturing system inherited from Spanish rule. Mining systems and estancias and haciendas (agro-industrial facilities) combined an
artisanal system with increased output to form proto-industrial landscapes in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, and Colombia. The agro-
industrial landscape of coffee production in Colombia was studied in Ocampo 1984, and Dávila Ladrón de Guevara 2003 describes an
entrepreneurial economic history and a persistent agrarian bourgeoisie. Deas 2011 is a classic study of caciquismo and economic
growth. Kalmanovitz 2013 presents the most recent economic history of Colombia.

Bucheli, Marcelo. Bananas and Business: The United Fruit Company in Colombia, 1899–2000. New York: New York University
Press, 2005.
A very useful text relying on United Fruit Company archives and business theories such as the internalization of markets. Enterprising
history that shows how the United Fruit Company shifted from the production to the marketing of bananas. At the same time this books
fives a critique on dependency theory.
Dávila Ladrón de Guevara, Carlos, ed. Empresas y Empresarios en la Historia de Colombia. Siglos XIX y XX. Bogotá,
Colombia: Universidad de los Andes, 2003.
An edited collection by scholars writing on the economic elites and the political power of Colombia and their early attempts at
industrialization in agrarian export-led production.

Deas, Malcom. “Insecurity and Economic Development in Colombia in the 1st Century of Independence.” Revista de Historia
Economica—Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History 29.2 (2011): 183–212.
One of the main founders of the Latin American Centre in Oxford, Deas has written on caciquismo, the history of taxation, civil wars,
coffee, insecurity and its economic consequences, and many other themes. He is a critical British historian of neo-classical, Economic
Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL), and Marxist approaches to understanding Colombian history.

Hudson, Rex A., ed. Colombia: A Country Study. 5th ed. Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress,
2010.
This book is an edited collection of a series, describing and analyzing its political, economic, social, and national security systems and
institutions, and examining the interrelationships of those systems shaping historical and cultural factors.

Kalmanovitz, Salomón. Nueva Historia Económica de Colombia. Bogotá, Colombia: Taurus, 2013.
This new book by Kalmanovitz is a useful compilation about the economic stagnation of the Colombian economy in the 19th century.

Ocampo, José Antonio. Colombia y la economía mundial: 1830–1910. Bogotá, Colombia: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1984.
This was one of the first important works by Ocampo introducing CEPAL analysis of the Colombian economy in the long-run 19th
century. Examines the paradox between high price of coffee exports during the first phase of globalization and underdevelopment in the
early stages of modern capitalism.

Twinam, Ann. Mineros, comerciantes y labradores: las raíces del espíritu empresarial en Antioquia, 1763–1810. Medellín,
Colombia: FAES, 1985.
A summary of the origins of the Colombian bourgeoisie around coffee plantations in Antioquia. Medellin was the key to real economic
growth of northwestern Colombia and Panama during colonial times.

Urrutia, Miguel. “Los eslabonamientos y la historia económica de Colombia.” Desarrollo y Sociedad 62 (July–December
2008): 67–88.
Very useful paper for understanding Albert Hirschman’s theories on strategy of development as applied to underdeveloped economies.
The author discusses the links between the coffee industry in Colombia and the attempts to an import substitution at the end of 19th
century.

Brazil
Brazil and Mexico were two cases in which factor endowments contributed to the reasons for falling behind in manufacturing under an
underdeveloped landscape. Furtado 1963, one of the founding fathers of the path dependence theory, is important for understanding a
general economic history of Brazil. Vidal Luna and Klein 2014 is up-to date-survey on Brazilian economic growth.

Braga de Macedo, Jorge, Álvaro Ferreira da Silva, and Rita Martins de Sousa. “War, Taxes and Gold: The Inheritance of the
Real.” In Transferring Wealth and Power from the Old to New World. Edited by Michael D. Bordo and Roberto Cortés Conde.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
This essay shows the Portuguese inheritance of the monetary system from imperial Brazil. This paper is part of an edited collection that
shows the monetary, fiscal, and institutional inheritances coming from the old European powers in America.

Furtado, Celso. The Economic Growth of Brazil: A Survey from Colonial to Modern Times. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1963.
Pioneer of Brazilian studies and the economic consequences of slavery and plantation systems in the Americas. This survey analyzes
income flow and growth and at the same time the propensity for external disequilibrium.

Leff, Nathaniel H. Underdevelopment and Development in Brazil. Vol. 1, Economic Structure and Change 1822–1947. London:
George Allen & Unwin, 1982.
Analyzes Brazilian stagnation in the 19th century comparing it with Mexico and some other Latin American economies.

Suzigan, W. Indústria brasileira:origem e desenvolvimento. São Paulo, Brazil: UniCamp, 2000.

New edition of this classic first appeared in 1986. This book was another version of the work of Warren Dean on the origins of the
industrialization in São Paulo. Very useful to research scholars seeking micro-economic approach to precocious attempts to modern
economy in Brazil.

Szmrecsány, Tamás, and José Roberto do Amaral. História Econômica da Independência e do Império. 2d ed. São Paulo: USP,
2002.
An examination of theof imperial economy and early efforts to achieve agro-manufacturing economic growth.

Vidal Luna, Francisco, and Herbert S. Klein. The Economic and Social History of Brazil since 1889. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2014.
Recent book that summarizes the economic-political evolution of Brazil from the Old Republic to present-day democracy. With the
awakening of Brazil’s first republic, the nation moved from being a mostly rural traditional agriculture society with only light industry and
low levels of human capital to a modern, literate, and industrial nation.

Argentina

Argentina is another interesting case of early attempts at an agro-industrial system during the long 19th century. Díaz Alejandro 1975
was a pioneer in establishing a periodization forArgentinian economic growth before 1930. Brown 1979 produced a classic overview of
the core integration of the Argentinian economy at the end of the 19th century. Salvatore and Newland 2003 is very useful in
highlighting regional disparities.

Amaral, Samuel. The Rise of Capitalism on the Pampas: The Estancias of Buenos Aires, 1785–1870. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1998.
This book shows that the internal operations of the estancia were market oriented and profit motivated. This means that feudal
hacienda or autocracy and dependency was not the first stage in Argentinian industrial takeoff in the agricultural landscape before the
golden age. The estancia developed within an environment where competitive pressures mattered more than political protection and
social privilege.

Brown, Jonathan. A Socioeconomic History of Argentina, 1776–1860. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Recipient of the Bolton Prize for best book on Latin American studies. The author examines the international markets for Argentina’s
products, taking into account the industrial revolution then under way in Europe and the United States. The author also discusses the
influence of traditional native technology on Argentine production and transport.

Díaz Alejandro, Carlos F. Ensayos sobre la Historia económica argentina. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Amorrortu, 1975.
A pioneering study by former the Argentinian economic historian Díaz Alejandro. The author establishes the periodization of regional
economic growth before 1930 and after. Focuses on the pessimism of the traditional export-led economy and the optimism of the
improvement of that model the period of late industrialization after 1930.

Hora, Roy. Historia Económica de la Argentina en el siglo XIX. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Siglo Veintiuno, 2010.
A short history of Argentina summarizing regional economic disparities before the golden age.

Newland, Carlos, and Javier Ortiz. The Economic Consequences of Argentine Independence. Santiago, Chile: Pontificia
Universidad Católica de Chile, 2001.
Analyzes the end of the Spanish rule in terms of transport costs and mercantile restrictions to exports in Buenos Aires after 1810.

Sábato, Hilda. Capitalismo y Ganadería en Buenos Aires. La fiebre del lanar: 1850–1890. Buenos Aires, Argentina:
Sudamericana, 1989.
A classic text on the history of the sheep-breeding industry in Buenos Aires at the end of Spanish rule.

Salvatore, Ricardo, and Carlos Newland. “Between Independence and the Golden Age: The Early Argentine Economy.” In A
New Economic History of Argentina. Edited by G. Della Paolera and A. Taylor. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
2003.
Strongly influenced by Amaral 1998 the authors try to widen the Buenos Aires model of economic growth to the whole of Argentina,
pointing out the huge disparities throughout the 19th century.
Sánchez Román, José Antonio. La dulce crisis: estado, empresarios e industria azucarera en Tucumán, Argentina: 1853–
1914. Seville, Spain: CESIC, 2005.
This book tries to explain the huge disparities between Argentinian local provinces like Tucumán and the traditional sugar mill industry,
along with the concentration of wealth in Buenos Aires.

Chile

Traditional studies show that Chilean industrial takeoff was closely associated with the copper and nitrate mining industry. But new
evidence show that these early attempts were frustrated in the long run. Pinto Santa Cruz 1996 is a classic study of this issue. Fuentes
2011 focuses on external and endogenous factors that made Chilean economic growth and industrialization very slow before 1980s.

Díaz B., José, and Rolf S. Lüders. Economía chilena 1810–1995: evolución cuantitativa del producto total y sectorial.
Documentos de Trabajo 186. Santiago: Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 1998.
A very good survey and data source for economic growth, national economic censuses, GDP, income distribution, and labor markets.

Fuentes, J. Rodrigo. “A Unified Growth Model for Independent Chile.” Latin American Journal of Economics 18.2 (November
2011): 157–179.
Two hundred years of data serve as evidence according to the neoclassical growth model. The author finds structural changes in 1929
and in 1971/1981. A further analysis of the country’s economic history indicates that fiscal policy, external shocks, and trade policy are
plausible explanations for these breaks.

Mamalakis, Markos. The Growth and Structure of the Chilean Economy: From Independence to Allende. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1976.
An overview of the Chilean economy in the long run but especially useful for this period.

Muñoz, Oscar. “Economy and Society in Chile: Frustration and Change in the Process.” International Social Science Journal
44.4 (1992): 487–502.
A critical essay on the myths of the Chilean laboratory in the 20th century. A brief summary of late capitalism in Chile and its heritage in
the late years of Pinochet’s dictatorship.

Ortega, Luis. “El proceso de industrialización en Chile.” In Historia. No. 26, 213–246. Santiago, Chile: Santiago Pontificia
Universidad Católica de Chile, 1992.
Similar text like Muñoz 1992 summarizing the main staples in evolution to industrialization in Chile since late 19th century.

Pinto Santa Cruz, Aníbal. Chile. Un caso de desarrollo frustrado. Santiago: Universidad de Santiago de Chile, 1996.
A classic study by former Pinto. As chair of the Economic Development Division in CEPAL, Pinto focused on the main CEPAL
theoretical approaches of core and periphery in the case of Chile.
Vera Hormazábal, Pedro A. Historia económica de chile 1918–1939 una introducción. Diputación de Sevilla, 1980.
A summary of British interests in Chile during the parliamentary system of government between 1886 and 1920.

Peru

Contreras Carranza 2011 remains the main author focusing on the great issues of the economic history of Peru. Following the period of
the silver mining industry during colonial rule, Peru had a large corridor of manufacturing in the highlands but in the long-run agro-
industrial markets of potato production and the export-led guano (agricultural fertilizer) industry were dominant at least during the so-
called “lost decades,” the period of time where Latin American economies suffered from crisis derived of unpayable debt, fiscal deficit
and volatile inflation, starting in the eighties.

Contreras Carranza, Carlos. “Menos plata pero más papas: consecuencias económicas de la independencia en el Perú.”
Histórica 35.2 (2011): 101–132.
This article covers two main aspects of the economic history of Peru in the 19th century: the first presents the most solid quantitative
series on Peruvian production and commerce during the transitional period of independence. The second deals with the characteristics
of the state political economy after independence.

Gootenberg, Paul. Between Silver and Guano: Commercial Policy and the State in Postindependence Peru. Princeton
University Press, 1991.
Accurate approach to a transitional economy from silver mining to export goods and raw materials in the second half of 19th century.

Bolivia

There are very few works discussing the regional disparities in Bolivia. Older texts tries to point toward the core-periphery model and
the export led system in Bolivia since colonial rule. Morales 2000 shows new evidence in an economic geography approach.

Morales, Rolando. Bolivia: geografía y desarrollo económico. New York: Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, 2000.
An important study to discuss geographical determinations in economic regional growth in Bolivia. The author finds that geographical
variables matter in the explanation of lack of basic assets; and points to labor income and GDP per capita disparities among provinces,
toward cities of the central axis of the country (La Paz, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz).

Ruíz González, Raúl. Bolivia el Prometeo de los Andes. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Platina, 1961.
A classic view of the paradoxes of economic growth and industry in Bolivia in the 19th century.

Villarroel Claure, Ramiro. Mito y realidad del desarrollo en Bolivia. Cochabamba: Editorial Los Amigos del Libro, 1969.
The analysis of an intellectual from Cochabamba on the subject of Bolivian disparities.
Uruguay

Except for Bértola, et al. 2010 and Bértola 2015 (both cited under Primary Sources, Data Banks), few works highlight the intitutional
changes in economic growth in Uruguay. Delbono Fernández 2007 makes an original approach discussing the “lost decades.”

Delbono Fernández, Andrea. Cambio institucional en el Uruguay moderno e inserción en la economía internacional:
transformaciones entre 1870 y 1913. Montevideo, Uruguay: Cuadernos del CLAEH, 2007.
Examines institutional economics as applied to Uruguay. Comparative analysis with the “lost decades.”

The Latin American Economies in the Age of Exports, 1880–1930

There is a consensus that the main engine of growth 1880–1930 period was industrial production in core countries. Determining the
overall rate of growth in these advanced economies pushed the increase of demand for exports from the peripheral economies,
including the Latin American countries. At the same time, the economic surplus from the core increased, as well as changes in
composition, beginning the first era of globalization in which Latin America was increasingly integrated. The rate of growth of world
trade in commodities was slightly higher than average global growth before 1870, reflecting the growing influence of the world market
on the national pattern of resource distribution in Latin America in the future (calculated around of 3 percent annual from 1872 to 1913).
During the last thirty years scholars have debated reasons surrounding the outward economic development of the Americas. Informal
imperialism and attempts to integrate national markets was evident in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. The main driver was
industrialization in the core and expansion of Atlantic North trade. The growth of domestic consumer markets in the larger Latin
American countries raised an closed and hermetic business elite that controled regional market for domestic manufacturing.

The Fall Behind and Backwardness

The export-led production system was well developed in South America during this period. For example, in 1913 slightly less than one-
fifthof the wool exported from the Río de la Plata went to the British market. Argentina had other export industries that also experienced
substantial growth. Leathers, a traditional product, comprised around two-thirds of the value of wool exports during most of the period
and almost doubled in total value from the 1870s to the 1910–1914 period. However, advances in refrigerated shipping in the 1870s
was paved the way for a rapid rise in meat shipments from Argentina and, to a lesser extent Uruguay. By the final decades of the 19th
century most Latin American nations had replaced direct European control with independent governments with mostly stable
boundaries. Despite these advances, Latin American nations battled a new type of imperialism, defined not by physical control but by
financial strategies that enabled the European powers and the United States to exert greater influence on Latin American economies. In
Mexico, for example, the reign of Porfirio Diaz witnessed such extensive growth of foreign land ownership that by the outbreak of the
Mexican Revolution in 1910 over 25 percent of Mexican territory was foreign owned. In Central America, foreign companies bought up
large portions of the best farmlands of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, while in the Colombian province of
Panama, first a French company then a US company, headed by J. P. Morgan, purchased the rights to construct the Panama Channel.
In Brazil and Argentina European investments, especially British investments, dominated the economic growth of these two nations.
Rail lines, electrification, and manufacturing were all financed with foreign capital, which meant that most profits from these endeavors
also ended up in foreign hands. Latin American economies developed in the course of the 19th century through raising capital by way
of bond sales in foreign markets, which raised capital by attracting foreign investments, which in theory would generate greater profits
and thus tax revenue. As commodity prices boomed, the region experienced increasing trade throughout the late 19th century. Because
of the limits in transport infrastructure and the scarcity of waterways in the region in the mid-19th century, railways constituted the only
available means to integrate domestic markets and to connect them with the international economy.

Overview
Understanding Latin America in the age of exports requires various theoretical approaches that bring together the role of the state in the
export-led model but also an institutional framework that factors in liberal property rights, a new free labor force, new tax policies, and
new secure guarantees for foreign investors. At the end of World War I, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Cuba enjoyed relatively high per
capita exports. Costa Rica was similar to the rest of Central America, this means that the plantation and raw materials export economy
was prevailing in Central America in this period. Mexico offers a clear example of how the state’s commercial regulations helped to
raise a regional textile industry and regional linkages before the era of state-led production systems. Myint 1958 was a pioneer in this
area. Abel and Lewis 1985 published is an important volume that discusses this issue with a theoretical approach toward economic
imperialism. Thorp 1998 shows regional disparities and contradictions between the outward and inward economic strategies of different
countries. Ocampo 2004 discusses Latin America’s integration into world market since 1870.

Abel, Ch., and C. M. Lewis, eds. Latin America, Economic Imperialism, and the State: The Political Economy of the External
Connection from Independence to the Present. London: Athlon Press, 1985.
Classic edited collection discussing the different roles British imperialism held in Latin American countries in the age of exports.

Artal Tur, Andrés. Modelos de desarrollo económico latinoamericano y shocks externos: una revisión histórica. Cartagena:
Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, 2014.
Analyzes the collapse of models of development due to the sharp changes that occurred in international economic environments. The
hypothesis outlined in this article covers the last hundred years of Latin America economic history.

Cárdenas, E., J. A. Ocampo, and R. Thorp. La era de las exportaciones latinoamericanas. De fines del siglo xix a principios del
xx. Serie lecturas del Trimestre Económico, 93. Mexico City: FCE, 2003.
This edited collection focuses on the agro-export model of Latin America, the development of internal markets, and the role of the state
in protectionist fiscal policies to foreign trade.

Cortes Conde, Roberto, and Shane Hunt, eds. The Latin American Economies: Growth and the Export Sector, 1880–1930. New
York: Holmes and Meier, 1985.
This summary explains—with the influence of Albert Hirschman on backward and forward linkages theory—the connection between an
export-led model and regional production. The magnitude of export surplus in the internal regional and national markets made the
differences in the Latin American map in this golden age of exports.

Myint, Hla. “The ‘Classical Theory’ of International Trade and the Underdeveloped Countries.” Economic Journal 68 (June
1958): 317–337.
A pioneer study of vent for surplus following Kalecki’s outline of demand-determined and supply-constrained industries. Foreign trade
operates on a “vent-for-surplus” principle whereby supply industries are run at full capacity and excess supplies (demands) are
exported (imported). The author applies these concepts to the age of exports in Latin America.

Ocampo, José Antonio. “La América Latina y la economía mundial en el largo siglo xx.” El Trimestre Económico 71.284(4)
(2004): 725–786.
Shows the broad trends of Latin American economic development and its relation to the world economy since 1870. Analyzes the
dependence of raw materials in the region, its industrialization strategy, and the incidence of unstable capital flows as the fundamental
factors that shaped Latin American development during “long 20th century.”

Thorp, Rosemary. Progress, Poverty and Exclusion: An Economic History of Latin America in the 20th Century. Washington,
DC: BID, 1998.
One of the best single-authored books that summarizes economic growth and well-being in the Americas. An original kind of political
economy of the region highlighting disparities and convergences along the 20th century.

Agro-Mining Export-Led and Domestic Market Industries

In parallel to an export model some countries developed a domestic industrial market thanks to railroad expansion and fiscal reforms
that lowered the costs of production and commercialization of goods in the regional markets.

Beatty, Edward. Institutions and Investment: The Political Basis of Industrialization in Latin America. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 2001.
This is a pioneering study focusing on institutional analysis of political issues on the road to industrialization.

Beatty, Edward. Technology and the Search for Progress in Latin America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015.
In this second book Beatty shows patent records in some Latin American countries in the era of exports. Patents have been poorly
studied in the region and many surprises arise from this point of view.

Mexico

Mexico is a good example of an attempt to create a domestic industrial market during the age of exports. Coatsworth 1981 was a leader
in this study. Camp 1985 shows the close relationship between economics and politics in the age of exports. The work is also a key to
the origins of the state-led production system after the Mexican Revolution. Haber 1989 highlights the disparities between industrial
revolution and traditional ancien regime landscapes in Mexico’s underdeveloped industrial system. Morales Moreno 1996 demonstrates
a particular case of the monopolistic economic manufacturing system in these years that is tied to political business in an effort to
achieve tax, subventions, and investment advantages thanks to the relationship between entrepreneurs and state officials.

Bernstein, M. The Mexican Mining Industry: 1890–1950. New York: Albany University Press, 1964.
This book gives perspective to the development problems of this foreign-owned industry against the background of Mexican national
growth and political change. The patterns of the industry’s structure are a product of many forces—domestic and foreign, technological
and social.

Bortz, Jeffrey L., and Stephen Haber, eds. The Mexican Economy, 1870–1930: Essays on the Economic History of Institutions,
Revolution, and Growth. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002.
This book highlights the roll of economic institutions in the Mexican revolution and its influence in economic growth.
Camp, R. A. Entrepreneurs and Politics in Twentieth-Century Mexico. New York: Oxford Press, 1985.
This is a very useful book that shows how economic relations and political power were very close in Mexico at least since the rule of
Porfirio Díaz. In the late 19th century, political mobility was attached to economics.

Cárdenas, E. La Industrialización de México durante la gran depresión. Mexico City: El Colegio de Mexico City, 1987.
This text shows how the economic crash of 1929 helped revolutionary Mexican governments improve internal economic development
and industrialization. General Cárdenas, in a departure from the populism of South America, designed a national plan for
industrialization with early Keynesian policies.

Coatsworth, John. Growth against Development: The Economic Impact of Railroads in Porfirian Mexico. Dekalb: Northern
Illinois University Press, 1981.
The Mexican railroad represented, on average, of 11 percent of the GDP in Mexico, which is higher than in many developed areas in
the Western world. Growth was the target against development because the linkages were not so evident forwarding a broad national
market and new industries development.

Gómez Galvarriato, Aurora. Industry and Revolution: Social and Economic Change in the Orizaba Valley, Mexico. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
An microeconomic viewpoint that shows the bias between social reforms and economic growth. Highlights the workers syndicates and
their power to support living standards over productivity and economic performance.

Haber, S. Industry and Underdevelopment: The Industrialization of Mexico: 1890–1940. Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 1989.
This microeconomic history argues that the roots of modern Mexican industrialization are during the Porfiriato, as the decisive era in
Mexico’s industrialization. The industrial sector, which functioned as a oligopoly during Porfiriato, resulted in the inability to compete in
international markets and the need for constant government protection.

Haber, Stephen, Armando Razo, and Noel Maurer. The Politics of Property Rights: Political Instability, Credible Commitment,
and Economic Growth in Mexico, 1876–1929. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Very useful for understanding the political influence of the 1917 Constitution and its affect on economics. Mexico inaugurated a kind of
state capitalism a fact tht is also highlighted by Camp 1985.

Kemmerer, E. W. Inflation and Revolution: Mexico’s Experience of 1912–1917. Princeton, NJ: H. Milford, 1940.
A classic work about currency issues during the Mexican Revolution, 1910–1917.

Mauer, Noel. The Power and the Money: The Mexican Financial System 1876–1932. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
2002.
This book emphasizes the close relationship between economics and politics in the Mexican economy since the regime of Porfirio Díaz.
Morales Moreno, Humberto. “Economic Elites and Political Power in Mexico.” BLARR 15.1 (1996): 101–121.
This text follows the discussion inaugurated by Camp 1985 and Haber 1989 focusing on the institutional changes instituted by the
administration of Porfirio Díaz. These changes were designed to improve regional industrialization through political influences and
business negotiations with “national entrepreneurship,” demonstrating conflicts with local farmers and small entrepreneurs in the central
plateau of Mexico.

Reynolds, C. W. The Mexican Economy: Twentieth-Century Structure and Growth. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996.
With five appendices in this volume, the author outlines opportunity costs of the Mexican Revolution with a structural analysis of
economic growth between 1900 to 1965.

Brazil

Brazil is a case study of a long economic history focused on mining, coffee production, textiles, and export-led production. Stein 1957
provides an analysis of the coffee agro-industrial period in Brazil. Dean 1970 explores the “age of manufactures” in São Paulo within
the export-led model. Finally Fritsch 1988 discusses protectionist policy during the export era.

Dean, Warren. The Industrialization of Sao Paulo. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1970.
Very important book that showed that industrialization in São Paulo in times of exports developed thanks to imports as well. Regional
industrialists were remained close to agrarian interests and the protectionist economic policies of the federal government especially in
the Estado Novo of Getulio Vargas.

Dinius, Oliver. Brazil’s Steel City: Developmentalism Strategic Power, and Industrial Relations in Volta Redonda, 1941–1964.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011.
A relatively recent book focusing on the economic history of a steel company and analyzing capital and labor relations.

Fritsch, W. External Constraints on Economic Policy in Brazil: 1889–1930. London: Macmillan, 1988.
This book focuses on the economic policy of the Old Republic and the external shock in the export-led model and the protectionism to
finance fiscal policies.

Furtado, Celso. The Economic Growth of Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965.
Translated in several editions in Brazil as Formação econômica do Brasil, this seminal book was influential in the 1970s and 1980s with
regard to the development of the region of Minas Gerais after the abrupt end of the mining boom in 1760.

Goldsmith, R. Brasil 1850–1984: Desenvolvimento Financeiro sob um seculo de Inflacao. Rio de Janeiro: Harper and Row,
1986.
A summary of net and nominal rate of interest in the long-run 20th-century Brazil.
Haddad, Claudio L. S. “Crecimiento Económico do Brasil, 1900–1976.” In Economia Brasileira: Uma Visao Historica. Edited by
Paulo Neuhaus, 21–43. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Campus, 1980.
A more technical article on economic growth in the long-run 20th-century Brazil.

Holloway, T. H. Immigrants on the Land: Coffee and Society in Sao Paulo, 1886–1934. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1980.
São Paulo, after abolition of slavery, subsidized the immigration of workers from southern Europe and Japan. Faced with a worldwide
coffee market and abundant land for expansion, native planters developed a package of incentives to attract workers, in contrast to the
coercive labor systems historically common in other plantation systems.

Stein, S. Vassouras. A Brazilian Coffee County, 1850–1900. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957.
This study seeks to understand the economic history of the industrial expansion of coffee production in Brazil. Primary sources and
interviews with descendants of pioneering valley settlers and former slaves.

Summerhill, William. Order Against Progress: Government, Foreign Investment, and Railroads in Brazil, 1854–1913. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
Another interesting point of view on institutional constraints in the Brazilian path to industrialization in the transition between empire and
the first republic.

Weinstein, B. The Amazon Rubber Boom: 1850–1920. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1983.
An important survey about the seventy-year history of the rubber during the export-led era in Amazonian Brazil.

Argentina

Once again Díaz-Alejandro 1970, is a classic overview that highlights the “golden era” of exports against an oligarchy that refuses to
establish an inward development. Gravil 1985, is very useful to understand the “informal imperialism” in Argentina in those years.
Finally, Cortés Conde 1997, compares the golden age as a kind of exceptionalism in the argentinian economic history.

Cortés Conde, Roberto. La Economía argentina en el largo plazo: 1875–1975. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Sudamericana, 1997.
Summarizes the Argentinian exceptionalism from the period of the golden age to economic decline.

Díaz-Alejandro, Carlos. Essays on the Economic History of the Argentine Republic. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1970.
A study on the puzzle of the golden age of export economy in the late-19th-century Argentina and the disproportionate influence of a
small elite of meat barons and importers that refused to invest in local and national industrialization.
Gravil, R. “The Anglo-Argentine Connection, 1900–1939.” In Dellplain Latin American Studies 16. Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 1985.
This paper focuses on the British investment in sheep and meat export industries from the Rio de la Plata to the British core in late
1900s to 1930s.

Phelps, V. L. The International Economic Position of Argentina. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1969.
A study on the export-led advantages in Argentina and the economic policies that followed in order to accomplish the Kuznets curve.

Pineda, Yovanna. Industrial Development in a Frontier Economy: The Industrialization of Argentina, 1890–1930. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 2009.
Pineda highlights the inner development of Argentina where a traditional approach focused on the export-led system.

Rocchi, Fernando. Chimneys in the Desert: Industrialization in Argentina during the Export Boom Years, 1870–1930. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 2006.
A relatively new approach focusing on the domestic industrial market in Argentina during the era of exports.

Solberg, C. E. The Prairies and the Pampas: Agrarian Policy in Canada and Argentina, 1880–1930. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 1987.
A suggestive comparison of two agrarian landscapes with the same external market priorities but different state and regional
institutional environments. Argentina’s approach favoredlaissez-faire practices more than the Canada this is reflected in the immigration
policies in both countries.

Taylor, A. Argentina and Economic Growth in Comparative Perspectives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.
Very close to the views of J. Williamson and specialized in comparative economic studies, the author has devoted many studies to the
Argentinian economic growth during the golden age.

Villanueva, J. “El origen de la industrialización argentina.” Desarrollo Económico, Revista de Ciencias Sociales 47.12
(October–December 1972).
Following a staple model the author discusses the agrarian and livestock origins of the domestic industrial landscape in the late 1930.

Colombia

Arango 1977 was a leading scholar in his studies of the Colombian “golden age” and the coffee agro-industrial system. Berry 1983
analyzes the Antioquia “age of manufactures” and the disparities with the rest of the country. Ocampo 1987 summarizes a the
economic history of Colombia.
Arango, M. Café e Industria, 1850–1930. Bogotá, Colombia: Valencia Editores, 1977.
This text focuses of the coffee cycle with local industries in the golden age.

Bergquist, C. W. Coffee and Conflict in Colombia, 1886–1910. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1978.
Focuses on the coffee cycle along with political struggles and regional interests in this period.

Berry, Albert, ed. Essays on Industrialization in Colombia. Tempe: Arizona State University Press, 1983.
Summarizes the staple model and precocious attempts to develop an industrial landscape in Antioquia and the regional disparities with
the rest of the country.

Kalmanovitz, S. Economía y Nación: una breve historia de Colombia. Bogotá, Columbia: Siglo Veintiuno, 1985.
One of the author’s first summaries on the economic evolution in Colombia. Very useful for familiarizing the reader with data and the
main periods of economic growth in the long run.

Mayor Mora, Alberto. Inventos y patentes en Colombia, 1930–2000: de los límites de las herramientas a las fronteras del
conocimiento. Medellín, Colombia: Instituto Tecnológico Metropolitana, 2005.
This is an original book in line with the investigations of Ted Beatty on patents and industrialization in the Latin American landscape.

McGreevey, W. P. An Economic History of Colombia, 1845–1930. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1971.
A statistical data approach that includesmany primary sources brought together in order to analyze the emergence of the golden age
coffee cycle in Colombia.

Ocampo, José Antonio. Colombia y la economía mundial, 1830–1910. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno, 1984.
This is one of Ocampo’s most important books on a macroeconomic analysis of the Colombian periods of industrial development in the
19th century.

Ocampo, José Antonio, ed. Historia económica de Colombia. Bogotá, Colombia: Siglo Veintiuno, 1987.
An edited collection of reputable Colombian scholars on the main topic of that nation’s economic history. The golden age is analyzed
highlighting the ascendancy of coffee from 1900 to 1928.

Palacios, Marco. El Café en Colombia 1850–1970. Una historia económica-social y política. Mexico City: El Colegio de México,
1983.
The most complete explanation of the coffee cycle and its social and political implications.
Chile

Ellsworth 1945 focuses on the end of the nitrate and copper business in Chile as a consequence of the 1929 economic crash. This was
the first analysis of the state-led system in Chile after 1930. Pinto and Ortega 1991 makes connections between the export-led era and
the inland, inward development of the “golden age.”

Bethell, Leslie, ed. Chile since Independence. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
This edited collection follows the same periodization of the other authors quoted in this section. The staples model ceased with the end
of World War II as the crucial era to saltpetre and copper companies in the export era.

Ellsworth, P. T. Chile: An Economy in Transition. New York: Macmillan, 1945.

This essay was a pioneer study about the impact of the 1929 crash in the export economy of Chile. The author notes that the extractive
industries for nitrate and copper were damaged by the Great Depression. Chile was forced to change its economic model by exerting
more government intervention in economics.

Pinto, Anibal, and L. Ortega. Expansión minera y desarrollo industrial: Un caso de crecimiento asociado (Chile 1850–1914).
Santiago, Chile: Universidad de Santiago, 1991.
Focuses on the relationship between the export-led mining in relation to inland industrial development during the years of the golden
age.

Reynolds, C. W. Development Problems of an Export Economy: The Case of Chile and Copper. Homewood, IL: Irwin, 1965.
Similar focus to Ellsworth 1945 but views the development outcome of these constraints.

Wagner, G. Trabajo, producción y crecimiento. La economía chilena, 1860–1930. Santiago, Chile: Universidad Católica de
Chile, 1992.
Very interesting connection between mining and supply industry around this staple theory. From wheat, silver, and copper to the
saltpeter industry in the north.

Peru

Miller, et al. 1976 conducted a workshop useful for understanding Peru’s stages of economic development after independence. Thorp
and Bertram 1978 highlights the golden era and the informal imperialism in Peru. Bell 1985, whose author was a former student of the
Liverpool school of Latin American Studies (under John Fisher), focuses on the connection between the export-led system and the age
of manufactures in Peru.

Bell, W. An Essay on the Peruvian Cotton Industry. Working Paper 6, Center of Latin American Studies. Liverpool, UK:
University of Liverpool, 1985.
Accurate study on the origins of takeoff in Peru before the era of import substitutions.
Mallon, F. The Defense of Community in Peru’s Central Highlands: Peasant Struggle and Capitalist Transition, 1860–1940.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983.
Mallon’s Marxist approach on peasant ideologies and identity strategies to get access to natural resources in the middle of liberal
reforms and economic growth. The region’s peasantry divided into an agrarian bourgeoisie and a rural proletariat during the period
under discussion. Communality inspired by economic insecurity has obscured this division.

Miller, R. C. T. Smith, and John Fisher, eds. Social and Economic Change in Modern Peru. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University
Press, 1976.
A workshop paper connecting social and economic stages in Peru after independence.

Thorp, Rosemary, and G. Bertram. Peru, 1890–1977. Growth and Policy in an Open Economy. London: Macmillan, 1978.
This text analyzes the Peruvian export-led economy under the gold standard and the nation’s relations with the British Empire in the
golden age.

Raw Materials and Plantation Economies

This section looks at countries whose economies were clearly path-dependant on the core industrial economies of the Atlantic North.
Domestic industrial markets arrived late and subordinated to the raw materials and plantation system.

Central America and Caribbean

Studies on Central America and the Caribbean describe geographical landscapes of “late capitalism.” Adler 1952 presents the
oligarchic model for Guatemala, which could explain a more general behavior for the rest of the Central America countries. Teplitz 1974
highlights a similar approach for Nicaragua. Bulmer-Thomas 1987, Posas 1993, and Dye 1998 all focus on the attempts to build a
domestic economy linked to the outward development economy.

Adler, J. E. R. “Schlesinger and Olson.” In Las finanzas públicas y el desarrollo económico de Guatemala. Mexico City: Fondo
de Cultura Económica, 1952.
An essay on the speculative economy in Guatemala and the oligarchic model in finances and politics.

Albarracín, P., and H. Pérez Brignoli. Estadísticas del comercio exterior de Costa Rica (1907–1946). San José: Universidad de
Costa Rica, 1977.
A very useful survey with primary sources on the external sector of Costa Rica’s economy.

Alienes, J. Características fundamentales de la economía cubana. Havana: Banco Nacional, 1950.

Reprinted by Universidad de la Habana in 1973, this book is a very good analysis of the structural conditions of the Cuban economy
since the Spanish rule.
Asociación Nacional de Hacendados y Colonos de Cuba. Estudio sobre el problema azucarero y sus consecuencias en la
economía cubana. Havana: n.p., 1930.
Interesting primary source for understanding the sugar cane industry in Cuba after the “Millions dance” period.

Belli, P. “Prolegómenos para una historia económica de Nicaragua, 1905–1966.” Revista del Pensamiento Centroamericano
146 (1975): 2–30.
A summary of Nicaraguan elites and the close relationship between economic and political interests during the golden age and after.

Browning, David. El Salvador. Landscape and Society. Oxford: Clarendon, 1971.

A survey on the staples model that analyzes monoculture, coffee, and cotton industry in the long run.

Bulmer-Thomas, Victor. The Political Economy of Central America since 1920. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
1987.
The author uses his unpublished estimates of the national accounts to explore economic and social development in the five Central
American republics from 1920. Examines growth under liberal oligarchic rule in the 1920s, heavily dependent on exports of coffee and
bananas and accompanied by modest reform programs.

Cambranes, Julio C. Café y Campesinos en Guatemala, 1853–1897. Guatemala City: Editorial Universitaria de Guatemala,
1985.
An important work for understandingpeasant culture and the coffee cycle in Guatemala.

Cardoso, Ciro, and Héctor Pérez Brignoli. Centroamérica y la economía occidental (1520–1930). San José: Editorial
Universitaria de Costa Rica, 1977.
A key text for understanding the evolution of the banana republic concept in the 20th century and the complexity of this kind of export
economy in Central America and the Caribbean. Very useful for students and scholars seeking deep historical understanding of the
economic and social history of Central America.

Dye, A. D. “Tropical Technology and Mass Production.” The Expansion of Cuban Sugarmills, 1899–1930. PhD diss., University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1991.
This text focuses on the technical and institutional changes in Cuba in the first three decades of the 20th century.

Dye, Alan. Cuban Sugar in the Age of Mass Production: Technology and the Economics of the Sugar Central, 1899–1929.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998.
This is a good study about “La danza de los millones” of the Cuban sugar mills and the strong technology transfer coming from the
United States and local adaptations that built an early industrial landscape on the island at the turn of the 20th century.
García, A. La Gran Burguesía Comercial en Cuba: 1899–1920. Havana: Ciencias Sociales, 1990.
Very useful survey with primary sources about the Cuban bourgeoisie and the influence of Spaniards in commercial and industrial
activities during the golden age. A fine Marxist analysis of the economic strategies of the Cuban economic elite in railroad investments
before the arrival of US economic investments.

Posas, Mario. “La Plantación Bananera en Centroamérica.” In Historia General de Centroamérica. Edited by Víctor Hugo
Acuña. Madrid: Siruela, 1993.
Discusses the banana republic and its evolution in the long run.

Teplitz, Benjamin. “The Political and Economic Foundations in Modernization in Nicaragua.” (1893–1909). PhD diss., Howard
University, 1974.
A very interesting book on the origins of the golden age in Nicaragua. Foreign investments and local struggles in an oligarchic political
system.

Export-led economies in South America

In this section we highlight some examples of outward economic development but with some degree of inner regional domestic
industrial markets on a smaller scale than that of the more developed countries in Latin America.

Uruguay

Two pioneer studies, Bértola 1991 and Bertino and Tajam 1999, show very well PIB growth and sectorial industrial development during
the golden age.

Bertino, M., and H. Tajam. El PIB de Uruguay 1900–1955. Montevideo, Uruguay: Universidad de la República, 1999.
GDP and per capita analysis and its disparities during the golden age.

Bértola, L. La industria manufacturera uruguaya, 1913–1961. Un enfoque sectorial de su crecimiento, fluctuaciones y crisis.
Montevideo, Uruguay: Ciedur, 1991.
Technical study on the evolution of the Uruguay manufacturing system during the golden age.

Venezuela

Vallenilla 1973, Baptista 2006, and Di John 2009 show the path-dependence model to the petroleum industry in Venezuela with an
oligarchical political system.

Baptista, A. Bases cuantitativas de la economía venezolana, 1830–2002. Caracas, Venezuela: Polar, 2006.
A very accurate survey on statistics and data that is useful for students and research scholars.

Di John, J. From Windfall to Curse? Oil and Industrialization in Venezuela: 1920 to the Present. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania
University Press, 2009.
Path-dependence models and oligarchic political influences are behind this text very close to neo-colonial inheritance approaches.

Vallenilla, L. Auge, declinación y porvenir del petróleo venezolano. Caracas, Venezuela: Monte Ávila, 1973.
A short history of the petroleum companies and the dependency of Venezuela on a petroleum-based financial system.

Bolivia

Bieber 1984 is a study of the path-dependence model of Bolivia with Germany in the golden age, and Contreras 1990 continues to
highlight the oligarchical model.

Bieber, León. Las relaciones económicas de Bolivia con Alemania 1880–1920. Berlín: Colloquium Verlag, 1984.
Natural resources and tin production in the German interests in the age of exports in Bolivia.

Contreras, M. E. “Debt, Taxes and War: The Political Economy of Bolivia: 1920–1935.” Journal of Latin American Studies 22
(1990): 265–287.
The complicated struggle between oligarchic interests and economic growth during the golden age.

The Road to Industrialization: State-led production, ISI, and CEPAL Overviews, 1930–1980

In the last two decades of 20th century “protectionism,” “import substitution,” and “state intervention” have become leyenda negra of
Latin America development in the postwar period. This period is a bibliographical fresh look at the controversial years between the end
of World War II and the point when, at varying dates in different countries, a discontinuity occured in which the postwar “style of
development” ceased to play a central role in the economic evolution of the region. Latin American countries failed to catch up with the
income levels of advanced economies in the 20th century due primarily to their inward-looking strategies, macroeconomic instability,
and weak institutional framework. After World War II some countries succeeded in industrializing and increased their shares in world
production regardless of their lack of competitive assets and low technology levels. Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina were the three major
economies with industrial divergences in parallel with the historical and institutional features that affected productivity growth after the
Great Depression. The failure of the import substitution industrialization (ISI) model suggested by the Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) in the long-run protectionist policies were apparently due to weak structure of human capital,
misaligned public incentives, and trade-union corporative relations facing political power and populist strategies, mainly in Argentina
and Brazil and more recently in Mexico during the public finances dependency on petroleum between 1971 and 1982. From the 1930s
to the 1970s, Brazil and Mexico were among the fastest growing economies of the world. It is clear that the decades after 1930s
represented a period of important macroeconomic and institutional developments in these economies. In short there is remarkably little
scholarly literature that systematically examines the industrialization (ISI) experience of Latin American countries in the 1940–1960
period. It is stunning, actually, how few good studies there are, and virtually none from the past twenty years.
Overview

This road to industrialization period is delimited by the state-led production model suggested by CEPAL and many theoreticians.
Prebisch 1964 was well familiarized with the Rostow Stage theory and the catching-up models coming from different academic
influences. Core and periphery discussions, backwardness theories, and backward and forward linkage approach to development were
at the table of the most important economic surveys achieved by CEPAL and university scholars and consultants. Rodríguez 1980
makes a good overview of these approaches. The quid problem not solved by the whole region in these years of accelerated
industrialization was the permanent lack of technology transfers and factor productivity with independence of state intervention. The
state-led production model is more accurate than the ISI model due to the fact that historic capital accumulation in manufacturing
became quite important at least in Mexico, later in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, and Chile at the very end of the 19th century. CEPAL
tried to build a new capital accumulation theory but ISI was not always the best economic policy in some countries in which mixed
strategies of export and import were always guided by state intervention or through state public enterprises. Katz and Kosacoff 2003
highlights this failure of ISI to stop path dependence in the region. These years between 1950 to 1973 witnessed a kind of golden years
of market expansion overseas and marked optimism to change the economic policies in development countries to liberalize capital
flows and regional markets with more independence of the traditional state intervention.

Bielschowsky, Ricardo. “Cincuenta años de pensamiento de la CEPAL.” In 50 años de pensamiento en la CEPAL. Santiago,
Chile: FCE, 1998.
This is a very good overview of the evolution of CEPAL’s mainstream and its benefits and constraints.

CEPAL. El Comercio de Manufacturas de América Latina: evolución y estructura 1962–1989. Santiago, Chile: Estudios e
Informes, 1992.
Useful tool for students and scholars to evaluate mixed strategies of economic development in selected countries.

Hofman, André. Latin American Economic Development: A Causal Analysis in Historical Perspective. Groningen, The
Netherlands: Growth and Development Centre, 1998.
Classic debate on growth and development strategies in Latin America in these years.

Katz, Jorge, and Bernardo Kosacoff. “El aprendizaje tecnológico, el desarrollo institucional y la microeconomía de la
sustitución de importaciones.” In Industrialización y Estado en la América Latina. Edited by Enrique Cárdenas, José Antonio
Ocampo, and Rosemary Thorp, 58–84. Lecturas del Trimestre Económico n. 94. Mexico City: FCE, 2003.
A key study for understanding the failure of the ISI model in reinforcing import substitutions in intermediate and capital goods in the
long-run period of state-led production.

Little, Ian, Tibor Scitovsky, and Maurice Scott. Industry and Trade in Some Developing Countries: A Comparative Study. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1970.
Analysis of the mixed policies of export economies with import substitutions in capital goods and its impact in domestic industries.

Prebisch, Raul. Nueva Política Comercial para el Desarrollo. Mexico City: FCE, 1964.
This is the historic dossier of the Conference of United Nations on Commerce and Development in 1964. The main ideas here were the
“desarrollista” statement of Prebisch to establish a new state-led production in capital accumulation and rational income distribution.

Rodríguez, Octavio. La Teoría del subdesarrollo de la CEPAL. Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1980.
A summary of the backwardness of the CEPAL approach and critique of its strategies.

Thorp, Rosemary. Progress, Poverty and Exclusion: An Economic History of Latin America in the 20th Century. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
Very useful tool to understand a general distinction in Latin America: the disparities among liberal progress and income concentration
and poverty and social exclusion.

Mexico

Mexico inaugurated a new stage of economic development known as the Mexican miracle during the World War II period and abroad.
Mosk 1957 was a pioneer in highlighting this “miracle” and its limits. Solís 1984 is is helpful in understanding the long run after World
War II. Cárdenas 1996 summarizes the stabilizing affects of the neoliberal reforms instituted by President Salinas.

Bortz, Jeffrey. Los Salarios industriales en la ciudad de México, 1939–1975. Mexico City: FCE, 1988.
A pioneering study on income distribution that analyzes the wage and salary evolution by industrial sectors in Mexico City. A lonely
study in this approach that was almost forgotten in this “desarrollista” fever in Mexico.

Cárdenas, Enrique. La hacienda pública y la política económica 1929–1958. Mexico City: FCE-COLMEX, 1994.
A monetarist approach on the origins of the economic distortions in Mexico as consequence of the lack of united industrial state
strategies since the Cárdenas rule.

Cárdenas, Enrique. La política económica en México 1950- 1994. Mexico City: FCE-COLMEX, 1996.
An accurate monetarist approach and balance of the stabilization development policy in Mexico from 1953 to 1971 and the populist
response until 1982. As a general reaction against foreign debt and petroleum dependency, the Salinas government turned to
neoliberal strategies and new economic groups facing an open economy in Mexico.

Cordera, Rolando, ed. Desarrollo y Crisis de la Economía Mexicana. Lecturas del Trimestre Económico, n. 39. Mexico City:
FCE, 1981.
Essays on the populist era and the petroleum sector in public policy in Mexico and the crises it faced: inflation, economic decline, and
external debt.

Lustig, Nora, ed. Panorama y perspectivas de la economía mexicana. Mexico City: El Colmex, 1980.
First balance on the limits of the state-led production model and its consequences in the near economic liberalization.
Mosk, Sanford. Industrial Revolution in Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957.
Mosk explores the route of the “Mexican Miracle” in the years following the war cycle, which lead to accelerated economic growth in
Mexico.

Solís, Leopoldo. La Economía Mexicana en cifras. Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1984.
A useful survey that covers the Mexican economic performance after World War II.

Villarreal, R. Industrialización, deuda y desequilibrio externo de México. Mexico City: FCE, 1988.
This is a classic neo-structural approach of the economic balance of stabilization economic policy and its consequences after 1971.

Brazil

Stein 1957 inaugurated the focus on industrial takeoff in underdeveloped areas in Latin America. Shapiro 1994 makes a balance of the
state-led production model in Brazil in the second half of 20th century.

Abreu, M., ed. A Ordem do Progresso: Cem Anos de Politica Económica Republicana, 1889–1989. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil:
Editora Campus, 1990.
Useful survey that covers complete evaluation of the state-led production system in Brazil in the long run.

CEPAL. “The Growth and Decline of Import Substitution in Brazil.” Economic Bulletin for Latin America 9 (March 1964): 1–59.
One of the first statistical studies about the ISI model impact on economic development in Brazil.

Shapiro, H. Engines of Growth. The State and Transnational Auto Companies in Brazil. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 1994.
This is a new balance on the role of the state in contemporary Brazil and foreign investments in the export economy.

Stein, Satnley. The Brazilian Cotton Manufacture: Textile Enterprise in an Underdeveloped Area, 1850–1950. Studies in
Entrepreneurial History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957.
Very useful monography about the golden age of manufacturing industry in Brazil and its decline in an underdeveloped institutional
landscape. One of the first research books with primary sources and data that influenced further investigation in this field.

World Bank. Brazil. Industrial Policies and Manufactured Exports. Washington, DC: World Bank, 1983.
Useful balance and survey about the evolution of mixed strategies of export-import and ISI in Brazil.
Argentina

Protectionism is analyzed in the Argentinian case and its failure in the long-run 20th century. Dorfman 1983 tries to balance the
influence of ISI in the new takeoff after 1930s.

Beccaria, L. Industrialización, mercado de trabajo y distribución del ingreso. Buenos Aires, Argentina: CEPAL, 1989.
This paper was financed by CEPAL in order to analyze the huge disparities in income distribution and distortions of the labor market in
Argentina over the last thirty years. One of the few studies that provides an overview for the region.

CEPAL. Indicadores macroeconómicos de la Argentina. Buenos Aires, Argentina: ONU, 1983.

Data bank and survey for scholars and students.

Dorfman, A. Cincuenta años de industrialización en la Argentina, 1930–1980. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Solar ediciones, 1983.
A critical approach that assesses the industrial background in Argentina in the late 19th century but with an institutional framework that
is very weak before the 1930s. The new industrialization takes off thanks to the financial crash of 1929 and ISI strategies.

Mallon, R., and J. V. Sourrouille, La política económica en una sociedad conflictiva. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Amorrortu
editores, 1975.
This book analyzes the high protectionist years in Argentina (1958–1975) with evident Dutch disease and high inflation and devaluation
policies facing the external disequilibrium.

Schvarzer, J. El Banco nacional de Desarrollo y el desarrollo tecnológico en la Argentina. Buenos Aires, Argentina: CISEA,
1982.
Accurate analysis of Peronista economic policies to improve state investments in industry and technology.

Chile

Bitar 1979 studies the brief socialist experience in Chile and its impact on economic growth. Benavente, et al. 1996 highlights the
formation of human capital in the long run in Chile with an important survey financed by CEPAL.

Benavente, J. M., G. Crespi, and Jorge Katz. El Sistema Innovativo Nacional Chileno. DDPE-CEPAL. Universidad de Chile,
1996.
A survey of technological progress and its impact on human capital formation in Chile.

Bitar, S. Transición, socialismo y democracia, la experiencia chilena. Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1979.
Politics and economic analysis of the failure of the Salvador Allende administration and the first consequences of Pinochet’s
dictatorship.
Ffrench Davis, R. “Import liberalization: The Chilean experience, 1973–1982.” In Military Rule in Chile. Edited by J. S.
Valenzuela and A. Valenzuela, 51–84. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.
A factual analysis of the Chilean laboratory in neoliberal economics and first outcomes.

Hachette, D., and R. Luders. La privatización en Chile. Santiago, Chile: CINDE, 1992.
A balance of neoliberal economic policy in late dictatorship government and its outcomes.

Meller, P. Un Siglo de Economía Política Chilena (1890–1990). Santiago, Chile: Andrés Bello, 1996.
A balance of the state-led production system in Chile in the long run.

Muñoz, O. Los inesperados caminos de la modernización económica. Santiago, Chile: Colección IDEA, 1995.
Useful survey for students to summarize the evolution of Chilean economy in twenty years of laboratory reforms.

World Bank. Chile. An Economy in Transition. Washington, DC: World Bank, 1980.
First balance of the Chilean laboratory to precocious neoliberal economic strategies.

Colombia

CEPAL 1957 is an important survey on the Colombian economy after World War II. Kalmanovitz 1978 analyzes the agro-industrial
sector as the strongest in economic development in Colombia.

Arango, M. El Café en Colombia, 1930–1958: producción, circulación y política. Bogotá, Colombia: Valencia Editores, 1982.
Analyzes the coffee cycle in Colombia in the age of ISI and state-led production.

Berry, Albert, ed. Essays on Industrialization in Colombia. Tempe: Arizona State University, 1983.
An edited collection that discusses the Colombian attempts to take off in the middle of high dependency on foreign trade.

CEPAL. Análisis y proyecciones del desarrollo económico. Vol. 3, El desarrollo económico de Colombia. Mexico City: ONU,
1957.
Data bank and survey on the economic conditions of Colombia after World War II.

Díaz Alejandro, C. Foreign Trade Regimes and Economic Development. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976.
This book is part of a series of research outcomes that discusses the external influences in economic development in Latin America.

Gómez, H. “Los grupos industriales y el desarrollo colombiano: conjeturas e interpretaciones.” Coyuntura Económica
(December 1976).
This paper shows the complex relationship between economic groups and the state in the route of economic development in Colombia.

Kalmanovitz, S. Desarrollo de la agricultura en Colombia. Bogotá, Colombia: La Carreta, 1978.

Interesting survey about agriculture economics and its slow integration to economic development in Colombia.

Palacios, M. El Café en Colombia. 1850–1970, una historia económica, social y política. Mexico City: COLMEX, Ancora
Ediciones, 1983.
A long-run analysis of the main commodity in the Colombian economy and its evolution.

Venezuela

The great discussion about Venezuela’s economic experience is the divergence between growth and development. Urbaneja 1992
illustrates this point well.

Bitar, S., and E. Troncoso. El desafío industrial de Venezuela. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Pomaire, 1983.
Strategic analysis on the future of an independent industrial model for Venezuela.

CEPAL. El desarrollo industrial de Venezuela. Santiago, Chile: ONU, 1966.

Data bank and survey very useful for understanding petroleum and development in Venezuela.

Jongkind, F. Venezuelan industrialization. Dependent or Autonomous? A Survey of National and Foreign Participation in the
Industrial Development of a Latin American OPEC Country. CEDLA 21. Amsterdam: Center for Latin American Research and
Documentation, 1981.
Huge unsolved question that marked the economic evolution of Venezuela until the present.

Maza Zavala, D. Venezuela: crecimiento sin desarrollo. Mexico City: Nuestro Tiempo, 1976.
The high disparities between foreign trade orientation policies and inland underdevelopment in Venezuela.

Purroy, M. El Estado y la industrialización en Venezuela. Valencia: Vadell Hermaos, 1982.

Focuses on the state-led model and the route to industrialization.
Robin, J. P., and F. Terzo. Urbanization in Venezuela. New York: Ford Foundation, 1972.
Foreign trade, petroleum policy, and urban landscape in Venezuela in the view of the state-led production system.

Urbaneja, D. B. Pueblo y petróleo en la política venezolana del siglo XX. Caracas, Venezuela: CEPET, 1992.
Populism and state in economic policies.

Central America as Latecomer

CEPAL 1992 is a very useful overview of the late-latecomer countries in Central America. Monge and Lizano 1997 highlights the
particularities of the Costa Rican economy and its particular path to a domestic industrial market in late 1980s.

CEPAL. Centroamérica: evolución económica desde la posguerra hasta fines de los años setenta. No. 211. Mexico City, 1992.
Very useful survey for understanding the first outcomes of economic development in Central America with ISI models.

Céspedes, V., and C. González-Vega. “Costa Rica.” In The Political Economy of Poverty, Equity and Growth: Costa Rica and
Uruguay. Edited by S. Rottenberg. New York: Oxford University Press and World Bank, 1993.
One of the best comparative surveys focusing on the political economy of income distribution and regional disparities between these
Costa Rica and Uruguay.

Monge, R., and E. Lizano. Apertura económica e industrialización en Costa Rica. San José, Costa Rica: Academia de
Centroamérica, 1997.
One of the first surveys of the impact of neoliberalism in the new economic policy in Costa Rica in the 1990s.

Pellicer, Olga, and R. Fagen, eds. The Future of Central America: Policy Choices for the US and Mexico. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 1983.
Analyzes the political role of the United States and Mexico in the Central America peace process in 1979–1982 and its economic
consequences.

Zuvekas, C. Changing Patterns in Central America’s Exports, 1980–1994. Lewisburgh: Council of Latin American Studies,
1996.
A survey of the new export cycle of exports and ISI impacts in the regional landscape.

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