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Colonial Origins of Inequality in Hispanic America? Some Reflections Based on New Empirical Evidence

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  • Dobado González, Rafael
  • García Montero, Héctor
Abstract
This 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 Acemoglu et al. Este trabajo pretende contribuir al debate sobre las causas históricas de la alta desigualdad económica en la Iberoamérica contemporánea y lo hace en forma básicamente empírica, lo que es bastante inusual. En él se muestran nuevos datos sobre salarios y estaturas de varios virreinatos que: (1) sugieren niveles de bienestar material relativamente medios o altos para grupos no privilegiados de la Hispanoamérica borbónica; y (2) permiten la construcción de índices de desigualdad económica. La comparación internacional de esos índices arroja dudas sobre la verosimilitud del ampliamente extendido supuesto de que la economía de la América española se basada exclusivamente en instituciones extremadamente desiguales o extractivas, que ha sido popularizada por los influyentes trabajos de Engerman y Sokoloff y Acemoglu et al.

Suggested Citation

  • Dobado González, Rafael & García Montero, Héctor, 2010. "Colonial Origins of Inequality in Hispanic America? Some Reflections Based on New Empirical Evidence," Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(2), pages 253-277, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:reveco:v:28:y:2010:i:02:p:253-277_00
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Esteban Nicolini & Fernando Ramos Palencia, 2016. "Comparing Income and Wealth Inequality in Pre-Industrial economies. Lessons from Spain in the 18th century," Working Papers 16.01, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics, Quantitative Methods and Economic History.
    3. Pablo Astorga, 2015. "Functional Inequality in Latin America: News from the Twentieth Century," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _135, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    4. Ingrid Bleynat & Amílcar E. Challú & Paul Segal, 2021. "Inequality, living standards, and growth: two centuries of economic development in Mexico," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 74(3), pages 584-610, August.
    5. Alfani, Guido, 2015. "Economic Inequality in Northwestern Italy: A Long-Term View (Fourteenth to Eighteenth Centuries)," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 75(4), pages 1058-1096, December.
    6. Pablo Astorga, 2015. "Functional Inequality in Latin America: News from the Twentieth Century," Oxford University Economic and Social History Series _135, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    7. Juif, Dácil-Tania & Baten, Joerg, 2013. "On the human capital of Inca Indios before and after the Spanish Conquest. Was there a “Pre-Colonial Legacy”?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 227-241.
    8. María del Carmen Pérez‐Artés, 2024. "Numeracy selectivity of Spanish migrants in colonial America (sixteenth–eighteenth centuries)," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 77(2), pages 503-522, May.
    9. , Stone Center & Bleynat, Ingrid & Challú, Amílcar & Segal, Paul, 2020. "Inequality, Living Standards and Growth: Two Centuries of Economic Development in Mexico," SocArXiv 9ztb7, Center for Open Science.
    10. Justin R. Bucciferro, 2017. "The economic geography of race in the New World: Brazil, 1500–2000," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1103-1130, November.
    11. Esteban A. Nicolini & Fernando Ramos Palencia, 2016. "Comparing Income and Wealth Inequality in Pre-Industrial Economies: Lessons from 18th-Century Spain," Working Papers 0095, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    12. Bleynat, Ingrid & Challú, Amílcar & Segal, Paul, 2020. "Inequality, living standards and growth: two centuries of economic development in Mexico," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 105215, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Arsenault Morin, Alex & Geloso, Vincent & Kufenko, Vadim, 2017. "The heights of French-Canadian convicts, 1780s–1820s," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 126-136.

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    JEL classification:

    • B23 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Econometrics; Quantitative and Mathematical Studies

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