Suchergebnisse

Me tomo la libertad de comenzar dándoles un consejo que probablemente van a agradecerme, no dejen de comprar y de leer este libro. Aunque, en realidad, a quien debemos estar todos agradecidos es al autor y al editor por poner esta obra a nuestro alcance. Se trata de unos de esos libros que uno desearía poder escribir y que los historiadores económicos –y economistas– de Iberoamérica y España raramente escribimos. No puedo detallar aquí las múltiples razones por las que deberíamos intentar hacerlo, especialmente los españoles acuciados por la crisis, económica y no sólo, de nuestro país. Si una sociedad empobrecida no sabe qué hacemos, ¿por qué debería darnos dinero para seguir haciéndolo? Los ensayistas norteamericanos, o que trabajan en Estados Unidos, como es el caso de Milanovic (Banco Mundial y Universidad de Maryland), han dependido menos tradicionalmente de las instituciones oficiales a la hora de publicar sus libros. Tal vez ello les lleve a pensar más en cómo atraer al público potencial de sus obras. <br /><br />

Intro -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Notes on Contributors -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Introduction -- The Fruits of the Early Globalization: An Iberian Perspective -- Introduction -- Book's Structure and Short Summary of the Chapters -- Part II. The Early Globalization: Description and Some Consequences -- Part III. Trade and Consumption of Textiles in the Early Globalization -- Bibliography -- The Early Globalization: Description and Some Consequences -- The Significance of Early Globalization: Arguments and Evidence -- Introduction -- Integration of Global Commodity Markets -- The Rise of Global Trade and Migration -- Consequences for Global Development -- Debate -- Africa and the Americas -- Asia -- Europe -- Conclusion -- References -- International Migrations to Latin America and the Caribbean Until 1820 -- The Sixteenth Century -- The Seventeenth Century and Eighteenth Century -- The Structure of Transatlantic Migrations -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- The Fruits of El Dorado: The Global Impact of American Precious Metals -- Introduction -- Impact on European Economies -- Fiscal Revenue -- Short and Medium-Term Effects -- Long-Term Consequences for Iberia -- Long-Term Consequences for Other European Countries -- Impact on Latin America -- From Conquest to Colonization -- Building the Backbone of the Empire -- Imperial Fortunes -- A Counterfactual Metal-Less Empire -- Impact on Africa and Asia -- Conclusion -- References -- Prices and Money in the Globalization of the Early Modern Era -- Introduction -- Golden Age and Collapse of Silver Production -- Silver Scarcity and Decline of Prices -- Silver as International Mean of Payment and Price Comovements -- Statistical Analysis of Prices and Silver Production Series -- Concluding Remarks and Further Research -- References.

1 Introduction -- 2 Early Globalization: Arguments and Evidence -- 3 Harbingers of Modernity: an Iberian perspective -- 4 Silver production, prices and globalization in the eighteenth century -- 5 The Austrian mining industry and the Iberian globalization -- 6 The Manila Galleon and the Age of Trade -- 7 The reception of Asian textiles in Portugal and Brazil: impact and consequences (1500- 1800) -- 8 Oriental Goods in New Spain: Trade, Fashion, Race, and Consumption -- 9 The Trade and the Consumption of European products at the beginning of 18th century in New Spain based on Jean de Monségur's memoirs" -- 10 Iberian Empires & Transatlantic Migration 1492-1808.

Anthropometric literature on the American territories of the Hispanic monarchy before their independence is still scarce. We attempt to expand the field with a case study that includes some important novelties. Albeit our main source, the military records of the Censo de Revillagigedo (conducted in the early 1790s), has already been used, the sample size and the geographical scope are unprecedented: 19,390 males of four ethnicities (castizos, españoles, mestizos, and mulatos) aged from 16 to 39 from 24 localities, including towns and villages scattered across central regions of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. We build a database that, complemented with information on resource endowments obtained from other sources, permits to analyze the determinants of height. Our results show the importance of spatial differences as well as the significance of ethnicity, occupation, rurality, age and resource endowments as determinants of height. Unprivileged mulatos are only 0.5 cm shorter than, assumedly privileged, españoles in the "first world" (El Bajío) and 1.3 cm taller in the "second world" (Eastern Central Highlands). In turn, living in the "first world" implies being between nearly 1.5 cm and 5 cm taller than the inhabitants of the "second world". Our estimates of physical statures are placed within an international comparative context and offer a relatively "optimistic" picture.

AbstractThis paper offers new quantitative evidence on living standards in Bourbon America through a pioneering study of both wages and heights. Wages were not low, nor were heights short, by the international standards of the period. The living standards of Spanish Americans thus compare favourably with those of other regions of the world, including Europe. As in many parts of the West, one can observe a trend towards the deterioration of real wages in Spanish America at the end of the period. Our findings suggest that the 'Great Divergence' in living standards between Spanish America and the developed Western countries might have taken place mainly after independence and that currently available GDP per capita estimates might be too low.

AbstractThis paper attempts to contribute to the ongoing debate on the historical roots of the high economic inequality of contemporary Iberian America. Our approach, which is basically empirical, departs from the mainstream scholarship. We show new data on wages and heights in several viceroyalties that (1) suggest relatively medium-to-high levels of material welfare among the commoners in Bourbon Hispanic America; and (2) allow us to build indexes of economic inequality. An international comparison of those indexes casts some doubts on the widely accepted view that Viceroyal America's economy was exclusively based on extremely unequal or extractive institutions, as it has been popularized by the influential works by Engerman and Sokoloff and Acemogluet al.

Globalization, if defined as the integration of international commodity markets, started in the eighteenth century and progressed gradually and with some setbacks into the nineteenth century, instead of suddenly appearing at some point after the 1820s. We use grain prices in Europe and the Americas to determine the extent and dynamics of market integration throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. An innovative methodology, with special attention being paid to changes in residual dispersion of the univariate models of relative prices between markets, permits us to obtain a measure of market integration over time.