Globalisation and economic growth in the Third World: Some evidence from eighteenth-century Mexico

Journal of Latin American Studies

Volumn 37, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 437-467

  Ponzio, Carlos Alejandro ^a  

^a UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA DE NUEVO LEÓN   (Mexico)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ECONOMIC GROWTH; EIGHTEENTH CENTURY; GLOBALIZATION; HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY;

MEXICO [NORTH AMERICA]; NORTH AMERICA; WESTERN HEMISPHERE; WORLD;

EID: 23944449339     PISSN: 0022216X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022216X05009429     Document Type: Article

References (74)

1. There are two other important topics in the economic historiography of eighteenth-century Mexico that will not be studied in this article. The first is the evolution of inequality during the century, and the second is the spatial and class differences of any possible growth in the aggregate.
2. See Jeffrey G. Williamson, 'Globalization, convergence and history,' Journal of Economic History, vol. 56 (1996), pp. 277-306;
3. Kevin H. O'Rourke and Jeffrey G. Williamson, Globalization and History. The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy (Cambridge, 1999).
4. See Kevin O'Rourke and Jeffrey G. Williamson, 'After Columbus: Explaining Europe's Overseas Trade Boom, 1500-1800,' Journal of Economic History, vol. 62, no. 2 (2002), pp. 417-456;
5. Jeffrey G. Williamson, 'Land, Labor and Globalization in the Third World, 1870-1940,' Journal of Economic History, vol. 62., no. 1 (2002), pp. 55-85.
6. On Latin America, see also Victor Bulmer-Thomas, The Economic History of Latin America since Independence (New York, 2003);
7. John H. Coatsworth and Jeffrey G. Williamson, 'The Roots of Latin American Protectionism: Looking before the Great Depression,' NBER Working Paper 8999 (Cambridge, 2003);
8. and Luis Bértola and Jeffrey G. Williamson, 'Globalization in Latin America before 1940,' NBER Working Paper 9687 (Cambridge, 2003).
9. A more ambitious goal would be to compare directly the economic growth of this century of globalisation to the growth of the period of disintegration in the early nineteenth century. But this requires a much larger effort in estimating economic growth in the later period.
10. This does not mean there was no investment in the economy, but rather that it was related to exports.
11. See John H. Coatsworth, 'Cycles of globalization, economic growth, and human welfare in Latin America,' in Otto T. Solbrig, Robert Paarlberg and Francesco di Castri (eds.), Globalization and the Rural Environment (Cambridge, 2001).
12. Some small fraction of silver inevitably remained in colonial Mexico serving as money.
13. O'Rourke and Williamson, Globalization and History.
14. Enrique Florescano and Margarita Menegus, 'La época de las reformas borbónicas y el crecimiento económico (1750-1808),' in Historia General de México, Versión 2000 (Mexico City, 2000);
15. Manuel Miño, El mundo novohispano: población, ciudades y economía, siglos XVII y XVIII (Mexico City, 2001).
16. John H. Coatsworth, 'Economic and Institutional Trajectories in Nineteenth-Century Latin America,' in John H. Coatsworth and Alan. M. Taylor (eds.), Latin America and the World Economy since 1800 (Cambridge, 1998).
17. Stanley L. Engerman and Kenneth Sokoloff, 'Factor Endowments, Institutions, and Differential Paths of Growth Among New World Economics,' in S. Haber (ed.), How Latin America Fell Behind: Essays on the Economic Histories of Brazil and Mexico, 1800-1914 (Stanford, 1997), link the differences in institutions between Latin America and British America to differences in factor endowments and inequality.
18. Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson, 'The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation,' American Economic Review, vol. 91, no. 5 (2001) attempt to estimate the effect of institutions on economic performance for a large number of countries.
19. John J. TePaske, 'Economic Cycles in New Spain in the Eighteenth Century: The View from the Public Sector,' in Richard L. Garner and William B. Taylor (comps.), Iberian Colonies, New World Societies: Essays in Memory of Charles Gibson, private publication, pp. 119-42 (1985).
20. Herbert S. Klein, The American Finances of the Spanish Empire: Royal Income and Expenditures in Colonial Mexico, Peru and Bolivia, 1680-1809 (Albuquerque, 1998).
21. For in-depth analysis of the structure of government income in colonial Mexico, see this and Carlos Marichal and M. Carmagnani, 'From Colonial Fiscal Regime to Liberal Financial Order, 1750-1912,' in Michael D. Bordo and Roberto Cortés-Conde (eds.), Transferring Wealth and Power from the Old to the New World (New York and Cambridge, 2001).
22. Richard L. Garner with Spiro E. Stefanou. (1993), Economic Growth and Change in Bourbon Mexico (Gainesville, 1993).
23. An assumption is required to relate changes in the maize price to changes in the price level, and the one I follow here appeals with its simplicity. Currently, there is not enough evidence in the economic historiography to attempt its empirical justification.
24. See John J. TePaske and Herbert S. Klein (1981), 'The Seventeenth-Century Crisis in New Spain: Myth or Reality?,' Past and Present, no. 90 (1981), pp. 116-35;
25. and John H. Coatsworth, 'La historiografía económica de México,' Revista de Historia Económica, vol. 4, no. 2 (1988), pp. 277-91.
26. Stanley J. Stein and Barbara H. Stein, The Colonial Heritage of Latin America: Essays on Economic Dependence in Perspective (New York, 1970).
27. Equation 1 is far from stating that the colonial economy consisted only of mining. In fact, the presumption here is that ρ is a number much larger than one, perhaps between six and twelve. On this, see Appendix.
28. Miño, Mundo novohispano.
29. John J. TePaske and Herbert S. Klein, Ingresos y egresos de la Real Hacienda en Nueva España (Mexico City, 1986).
30. The present essay allows government income to vary as a share of total output.
31. TePaske, Economic Cycles.
32. Klein, American Finances.
33. Enrique Florescano and Isabel Gil Sánchez, 'La época de las reformas borbónicas y el crecimiento económico, 1750-1808,' in Alejandra Moreno Toscano et al., Historia General de México, vol. 2 (Mexico City, 1976), pp. 183-302.
34. David Brading, Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763-1810 (Cambridge, 1971).
35. Herbert S. Klein, 'La economía de la Nueva España, 1680-1809: un análisis a partir de las cajas reales,' Historia Mexicana, vol. 34, no. 4 (1985), pp. 561-609.
36. Enrique Florescano, Precios del maíz y crisis agrícolas en México, 1709-1810 (Mexico City, 1969).
37. Richard L. Garner, 'Problèmes d'une ville minière mexicaine à la fin de l'époque coloniale: prix et salaires a Zacatecas (1760-1821),' Cahiers des Amériques Latines, 6 (1972), pp. 75-111;
38. Flor de María Hurtado López, Dolores Hidalgo, estudio económico, 1740-1790 (Mexico City, 1974);
39. Cacilia Rabell, 'San Luis de la Paz. Estudio de economía y demografía históricas, 1645-1810,' Tesis de Maestría, Mexico, 1975,
40. and, Los diezmos de San Luis de la Paz. Economía de una región del Bajío en el siglo XVIII (Mexico City, 1986);
41. and Silvia Galicia, Precios y producción en San Miguel el Grande, 1661-1803 (Mexico City, 1975).
42. Virginia García Acosta, Los precios del trigo en la historia colonial de México (Mexico City, 1988).
43. Horacio Crespo, Historia del azúcar en México (Mexico City, 1990).
44. John H. Coatsworth, 'The Limits of Colonial Absolutism: The State in Eighteenth Century Mexico,' in K. Spalding (comp.), Essays in the Political, Economic and Social History of Colonial Latin America (Newark, 1982), pp. 25-51;
45. and, 'The Mexican Mining Industry in the Eighteenth-Century Mexico,' in N. Jacobsen and H. Puhle (eds.), The Economies of Mexico and Peru During the Late Colonial Period, 1760-1810 (Berlin, 1986), pp. 26-46; and his Historiografía.
46. Jacobsen and Pule (eds.), The Economies of Mexico and Peru during the Late Colonial Period, 1760-1810.
47. Richard J. Salvucci, Textiles and Capitalism in Mexico: An Economic History of the Obrajes, 1539-1840 (Princeton, 1987).
48. Reinhard Liehr, América Latina en la época de Simón Bolívar: la formación de las economías nacionales y los intereses económicos europeos 1800-1850 (Berlin, 1989).
49. John H. Coatsworth, Los orígenes del atraso: nueve ensayos de historia económica de México en los siglos XVIII y XIX (Mexico City, 1990).
50. Pedro Pérez Herrero, 'Los beneficiarios del reformismo borbónico: Metrópoli versus elites novohispanas,' Historia Mexicana, vol. 41, no. 2 (1991), pp. 207-64.
51. Eric Van Young, La crisis del orden colonial: estructura agraria y rebeliones populares de la Nueva España, 1750-1821 (Mexico City, 1992).
52. Garner and Stefanou, Economic Growth.
53. Recent examples can be found in some of the articles in Coatsworth and Taylor (eds.), Latin America and the World Economy since 1800;
54. and Stephen Haber (ed.), How Latin America Fell Behind (Stanford, 1997).
55. For more on this idea, see Richard J. Salvucci, 'Agriculture and the Colonial Heritage of Latin America: Evidence from Bourbon Mexico,' in Jeremy Adelman (ed.), Colonial Legacies: The Problem of Persistence in Latin American History (New York, 1999).
56. See Carlos A. Ponzio, 'Interpretación económica del último período colonial mexicano,' El Trimestre Económico, vol. 65, no. 1 (1998), pp. 99-125.
57. For an in-depth view of the changes occurred in the economic historiography of the 1990s, see the outstanding surveys in Noel Maurer, 'Progress Without Order: Mexican Economic History in the 1990s,' Revista de Historia Económica, Año XVII, no. Especial (1999), pp. 13-36;
58. Antonio Ibarra, 'A modo de presentación: la historia económica mexicana de los noventa, una apreciación general,' Historia Mexicana, vol. 52 (2003), pp. 613-47;
59. and Eric Van Young, 'La pareja dispareja: breves comentarios acerca de la relación entre historia económica y cultural,' Historia Mexicana, vol. 52 (2003), pp. 831-70.
60. See also Thomas Skidmore, 'Studying the History of Latin America,' Latin American Research Review, vol. 33, no. 1 (1998), pp. 105-27.
61. TePaske and Klein, Ingresos y egresos.
62. TePaske, Economic Cycles.
63. Klein, American Finances.
64. That is, from the values presented by Klein, American Finances, in his Table 5.1, I subtract the values given in his Tables 5.6 and 5.7.
65. Garner and Stefanou, Economic Growth.
66. Florescano, Precios del maíz.
67. Charles Gibson, The Aztecs under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico (Stanford, 1964).
68. The corresponding values for this variable are presented in Tables 4 and 5 below.
69. See Jeremy Atack and Peter Passell, A New Economic View of American History: From Colonial Times to 1940 (New York, 1994).
70. Engerman and Sokoloff, Factor Endowments.
71. Manuel Orozco y Berra, 'Informe sobre la acuñación en las Casas de Moneda de la República,' Anexo a la memoria de la Secretaría de Fomento (Mexico City, 1857).
72. Alexander von Humboldt, Ensayo político sobre el reino de la Nueva Erpaña (Mexico City, 1966).
73. Florescano and Gil, La época de las reformas.
74. See, for instance, Jeremy Adelman, 'The Problem of Persistence in Latin American History,' in J. Adelman (ed.), Colonial Legacies: The Problem of Persistence in Latin American History (New York, 1999), pp. 1-13.