Papers by Xavier Tafunell
Latin America participated in the electric revolution which profoundly transformed the most devel... more Latin America participated in the electric revolution which profoundly transformed the most developed Western economies between 1880 and 1930. The electrification of Latin America began relatively soon after these economies, but it was incapable of keeping up with them. Public electric lighting was introduced early in the big Latin American cities, where electric trams started running at almost the same time as in Europe, and electricity spread rapidly in the mining sector. In the most advanced countries or areas in the region, the manufacturing industry substituted the steam engine with the electric motor, following the example of industry in the United States and Europe. Nevertheless, towards 1930 electricity consumption per inhabitant for Latin America was far below that of the more advanced economies, and only the Latin American countries which lead the process of electrification had reached levels of electric consumption that were similar to those of the late industrialised Eur...
"For many years Latin America economic history has been focused on the export performance of... more "For many years Latin America economic history has been focused on the export performance of the region’s countries and on the import substitution industrialisation policies. The former have paid most of their attention to world markets for Latin American products. The latter have researched the development of domestic output, typically for the largest economies. The imports have usually been neglected as well as the standards of living. Indeed, our knowledge of the development of income levels is very much limited to the large economies. This lack of estimates on levels of income is increasingly becoming a major brake to put Latin American experience in a real world wide comparative perspective. We propose to look at the import side of Latin American economies to find proxies for economic modernisation. In this paper we focus on capital goods imports in order to estimate capital formation. We rely on the exports of the three major capital goods exporting economies – the United Kingdom, United States and Germany – and we check the data with the imports of almost all Latin American and Caribbean economies. We do this for 1913 and 1925. The 1913 benchmark corresponds to the final stage of the classical age of development of the international economy. The 1925 one is at the middle of the recovering twenties, and it has been chosen as it usually corresponds with the start of a better historical statistics recollection. We will discuss the consistency of the two sets of data – exports from the UK, US and Germany and imports from Latin America – and propose a series of figures on capital goods imports (cements, metal products, machinery and transport equipment) for all Latin American and Caribbean countries in 1913 and 1925. The results that we have reached so far, allow for a systematic Latin American and Caribbean (and in some cases even to a wider international) inter country comparison point at a reassessment of the past economic performance of some of the small Latin American and Caribbean economies. We interpret these results within the framework of the opportunities provided for the smooth working of the international economy."
Palgrave Studies in Economic History
Latin America participated in the electric revolution which profoundly transformed the most devel... more Latin America participated in the electric revolution which profoundly transformed the most developed Western economies between 1880 and 1930. The electrification of Latin America began relatively soon after these economies, but it was incapable of keeping up with them. Public electric lighting was introduced early in the big Latin American cities, where electric trams started running at almost the same time as in Europe, and electricity spread rapidly in the mining sector. In the most advanced countries or areas in the region, the manufacturing industry substituted the steam engine with the electric motor, following the example of industry in the United States and Europe. Nevertheless, towards 1930 electricity consumption per inhabitant for Latin America was far below that of the more advanced economies, and only the Latin American countries which lead the process of electrification had reached levels of electric consumption that were similar to those of the late industrialised European countries. One of the most striking features of the electric revolution in Latin America is rooted precisely in the enormous national differences. These differences are indicative of the great economic inequalities existing in the heart of the region and these nations' highly diverse capacity for economic modernisation.
America Latina En La Historia Economica, Apr 1, 2013
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Papers by Xavier Tafunell