Economies from Independence to IndustrializationHumberto Morales Moreno, Miguel Reyes HernándezLAST REVIEWED: 30 December 2020LAST MODIFIED: 25 September 2018DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199766581-0198IntroductionBetween 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. Show
General OverviewsFew 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.
back to top Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login. How to SubscribeOxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here. How did industrialization affect Latin America?Decimated populations, diminished herds of livestock, flooded or closed silver mines, shrinking international trade, investment capital and empty national treasuries were among the conditions under which Latin American faced.
What happened to Latin America in the 19th century?In the early nineteenth century nearly all of areas of Spanish America attained independence by armed struggle, with the exceptions of Cuba and Puerto Rico. Brazil, which had become a monarchy separate from Portugal, became a republic in the late nineteenth century.
What was the impact of US involvement in Latin America in the early 1900s?Some of these effects were social political and economic. Puerto rice and Cuba became protectorates of the United States, Panama broke away from Columbia. The Panama Canal was built. The United States also increased its investment in Latin America.
When did industrialization begin in Latin America?From 1750-1900 in Latin America, foreign business interests would build industrial infrastructure to exploit mineral wealth, U.S foreign policy of divide and conquer would create dependency countries, however, European culture would perpetuate the periodization.
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