What do we know about the international export performance of the Caribbean between 1820 and 1940?

After more than three centuries of colonization, at the end of the 18th century the American continent was probably the most open international trading area of the world. Many questions concerning the relationship between trade and growth in Latin America during the 19th century and the first half of 20th century have not yet been answered. Why did Latin America trade more than the rest of the world from the beginning of 19th century? When did globalization in the Americas begin? Did Latin American export growth increase after the end of Spanish mercantilist political dominance?  Did British Caribbean exports fall into a state of permanent decadence after the end of transatlantic slave trade? A novel aspect of this study is that it considers the whole American continent’s export levels between 1820 and 1940 as a global geographical expression and consistently divides by regions according to geography, factor endowments and colonial origin. Provisional conclusion, contrary to the conventional wisdom, either during 1820-1850 or 1850-1870 “lost decades”, show a more optimistic view of the Ibero America comparative export performance.

• Autores: Antonio Tena Junguito; Universidad Carlos III de Madrid; Giovanni Federico; European University Institute
• Fecha de publicación: 2013
• Institución: Universidad del Norte
• Repositorio: Repositorio Uninorte
• Idioma: eng
• OAI Identifier: oai:manglar.uninorte.edu.co:10584/2940
• Acceso en línea: http://rcientificas.uninorte.edu.co/index.php/memorias/article/view/5271; http://hdl.handle.net/10584/2940
• License: http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2