Through the analysis of Argentina-World Bank (WB) relations between 1971 and 1976, this article examines how democracies and dictatorships, as well as political and economic constraints did (or did not) impact WB lending to Latin America. This period is especially revealing. Between May 1971 and September 1976, the WB did not grant any new loans to Argentina, thereby generating an exceptional and unusually long break in WB lending to the country. Drawing on previously undisclosed files from the WB Archives and additional primary sources from Argentina and the United States, this article unveils the actual mechanisms, criteria and justification that stood behind the decision to lend or not to lend to Argentina. It maintains that the WB’s self-imposed principle of «neutrality» played a crucial role in facilitating the WB’s relations with Argentina during the politically and economically unstable early 1970s.

The «Compañía de Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados» was made by the silk craftsmen in 1772, but the General Board of Commerce changed its nature to authorize all the social classes to take part in share-holders. Although that circumstance favoured its growth, it laid the foundations of its final failure to provoke a serious conflict between the craftsmen sector, who exercised sole right the managines charges, and the rest of share-holders, which fundamental discord motive was the loss suffered in the commercial crisis of 1779–82. Anyway, the preservation of its private documentation has made it possible to analyse its manufacturing activity and the result of its business; the commercialization of the silk textile in Cádiz stands out.

In this article the author pays attention to the role of credit in the negotiation of wool sales by big and small flockowners in the region of Soria during the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. He proves that the small flockowners always sold their wool several months in advance of its delivery, in order to borrow money from the merchants that bought it. Next he proves that during the sixteenth century the big flockowners usually sold their wool to the merchants on conditions and could delay the payment for a long period of time; they also obtained favorable very good prices for their products. Finally he proves that in the course of the seventeenth century the big flockowners of Soria had to face increasing financial difficulties that forced them to borrow money with increasing frequency in order to be able to preserve their flocks.

Qué duda cabe que el ferrocarril es un vehículo privilegiado para explorer la situación de la economía de un país, sobre todo en el momento en que se construye el grueso de las redes. Si uno no se limita a realizar una historia interna, ténica, jurídica o económica, no tiene más remedio que analizar las conexiones que se establecen entre ese moderno medio de transporte y el resto de la economía; esas relaciones son múltiples y ricas en significación para la historia económica de un país. Precisamente, en el libro objeto de comentario (1), esas relaciones son la principal preocupación del autor.

The aim of this article is to think about the expansion in peasant property detectable from the end of nineteeth to the middle of twenteeth centuries. The research is centred around one particular Catalan region, the Baix Empordà. The main parts of the process were the break-up and, the sale of old estates, as well as its purchase —fragmented— by peasant sectors. Some explanatory elements are set, both related to the behaviour of landed sectors, and to the means that make possible the expansion of a significant group of peasant properties.

This article analyzes sovereign debt defaults in four Latin American countries—Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico—for the period 1870-2012. The impact of sovereign defaults on real GDP growth is generally short-lived, while the impact in terms of output losses is deep and lasts long. Defaults in the period 1972-2012 show a deep and long-lasting impact compared to defaults in earlier periods. Moreover, the length of the contraction that follows a default is associated with favourable international conditions in the run-up to a default, while the depth of the contraction is associated with an expansive domestic economy in the run-up to a default. The results fit with boom–bust theories and sudden stop models.

This essay aims to introduce an issue of the RHE-JILAEH dedicated to the reconstruction of historical trade statistics of Latin American countries. It comments on the early perceptions of the quality and utility of historical trade statistics and on the way in which more recent analyses have overcome the distrust that prevailed until the last third of the 20th century. It then summarises the different criteria and methodologies that have been used to assess the accuracy and reliability of trade statistics in order to make them useful for the purpose of reconstructing new, more complete and precise trade series or re-estimating those available. The introduction ends with a brief description of the contents of this volume.

El estudio de la economía y de la política económica durame la Segunda República sigue despertando entre nosotros un gran interés, El advenimiento del nuevo régimen coincidió con el peor año de la depresión mundial iniciada en 1929 y durante su corta existencia tuvo que sobrevivir en circunstancias económicas muy deslavorables. En sus escritos, los políticos republicanos hieieron notar este desafortunado suceso, destacando cómo la crisis internacional limitaba seriamente su capacidad de acción. Naturalmente, el adverso escenario económico de la década de 1920 hubiera tenido menor trascendencia si no hubiese sido por las exageradas expectativas de mejoras sociales y económicas que había suscitado la llegada al poder de los partidos de izauierda v de los urunos republicanos.

This paper studies the evolution of the Chilean economy in the late 19th and early 20th century, a period when the country's convergence with developed countries came to an end. We analyse this problem in the context of the modern literature on the middle-income trap. The social, political and economic history of Chile between 1875 and 1939 is examined and the presence of most of the factors associated with the middle-income trap is found. We complement this narrative through a quantitative analysis based on the synthetic control method and argue that the process of state-led industrialisation undertaken in the country leading to the formation of CORFO was a key economic and political event. Our work presents some general lessons for developing countries facing a similar context.

En la literatura económica sobre tipos de cambio pueden encontrarse diferentes teorías o explicaciones sobre la determinatión del valor de cotización de las monedas. De todas ellas, las que gozan de mayor aceptación son la teoría de la balanza de pagos, la teoría del mercado de cambios a futuros, la teoría keynesiana sobre determinatión del tipo de cambio, el reciente enfoque monetarista y, por último, la traditional teoría de la paridad del poder adquisitivo.

A strongly rentier mentality prevailed in the Spanish Catholic church during the XVIth and XVIIth centuries. Investments were applied to the acquisition of real estate properties to be rented for long periods of time, or used to grant credits, either private ones (censos consignativos) or public credits (juros). Church institutions finally became during the XVIIth century the main monopolizers of public debt bonds. The advantages granted by the Crown allowed the clergy a propitious position for the acquisition of new bonds by means of speculative operations that were nearly fraudulent. However, the bankruptcy of the Spanish monarchy eventually affected the Church itself, and it placed some institutions in a difficult financial position.

The reform of the craft guild system in Spain, encouraged by the enlightened reformism of the second half of the eighteenth century, reached one of its most radical moments with the abolition of the Guild of Silk Throwsters in 1793. In this essay we look into the effects and reactions that this measure unleashed inside the important silk sector in the city of Valencia. Spinning, whose last and most skilled stage was throwing, had become a bottle-neck which put in jeopardy the future of an economic activity of vital importance for the urban population and economy. The abolition of this guild had the twofold effect of bringing to light the deep-seated troubles which were plaguing work organization in spinning, and disclosing the complex position of merchant capital in the silk trade. Valencian commercial bourgeoisie did not get involved in the much-needed reconversion of spinning. This is an essential factor to explain the failure of all the measures designed to provide the mills with cheap, good-quality yarn in large quantities. Furthermore, the absence of a restructuring of spinning is one of the reasons which accounts for the fact that the commercial bourgeoisie itself ended up maintaining a frontal opposition to this anti-guild decree issued by the Royal Court.

Una de las posibles líneas de investigación en torno al tema de la primera industrialización es la del proceso de transformación de las manufacturas privilegiadas del siglo XVIII, herederas de los talleres gremiales, pero sin apenas otras modificaciones que las puramente cuantitativas, en modernas fábricas vinculadas ya a un contexto de producción industrial. Un proceso del que desconocemos casi todo, por la simple razón de que estas manufacturas no sirvieron comúnmente de instrumento de cambio, que habría de producirse desde perspectivas mucho más modestas. Sólo un ejemplo: de las cuatro manufacturas privilegiadas que existían en La Coruña a principios del siglo XIX (sombrerería, lona y jarcia, mantelería y tabacos), únicamente esta última superó la crisis del Antiguo Régimen y, tras un período de acomodación, terminó por convertirse en una fábrica moderna.

This article examines the marketing and distribution of foreign fabric, predominantly English, in the northern sub-plateau of Spain at the beginning of the 18th century using information from a fiscal source. The official tax record used in this study was a specific and special tax levied on cloth imported from countries with which Spain was at war. The details of this tax shed more light on a hotly debated topic with respect to transport and networks in modern Spain and make it possible to analyze and quantify the physical volume as well as the value and the destination of textiles.

Starting from the quantitative reconstruction of revenues and expenses of the Royal Treasury in the Yucatan province during the period 1801-1821, the paper shows the transition from an unbalanced regional fiscal structure that depended on colonial transfers (situados) to offset the deficit, to one self-sufficient structure in the context of the Independence War and the liberalism of the Cortes de Cadiz. An autonomy based on the indigenous capitation tax and the fiscal control of foreign trade that was made in the ports of the Yucatan Peninsula.

Estar en condiciones de poder presentar un panorama general de la Extremadura moderna exige, entre otras cuestiones prioritarias, reconstruir las principales macromagnitudes económicas. Sin embargo, los estudios de la producción agrícola y pecuaria, de la renta de la tierra y de los precios, indispensables en las investigaciones sobre el Antiguo Régimen, presentan especiales dificultades en nuestra región, debido al modo habitual de explotar los derechos decimales, a la compleja realidad territorial —heterogénea y diversa—, a las destrucciones de partes sustantivas de importantes archivos y a la práctica inexistencia de determinados tipos de fuentes. Se requerirán, por consiguiente, años y un gran esfuerzo investigador antes de estar en condiciones de ofrecer una información serial de las principales variables económicas, tan abundante y fiable como de la que ya se dispone para algunas regiones españolas.

This paper is concerned with recent development of Economic History in Uruguay. It focuses on its institutional features as well as on the prevailing theoretical and methodological approaches and research topics. A foundational period 1960–1985 is shortly reviewed. Recent development is thereafter discussed and characterised as one of dispersion, re-foundation and specialisation. The paper concludes that, notwithstanding Economic History loosed its central place and weight among the social sciences, the discipline has gone through a process of institutional and organisational strengthening. This embraces specialised graduate education, fluent relationships to the international community and an attempt to combine historical knowledge with rigorous treatment of theory and method. On this basis, the production of more and better facts has been increasing and, hopefully, the discipline may regain an outstanding place in academic life.

This article aims to analyze the territorial taxes in the province of Alicante during the Década Moderada (1844–1854). Besides a structural analysis of the territorial taxes —quota and its charges—, the sharing out of taxes among the villages of the province, as well as the individual share of taxpayers in the town of Alicante and its province will be studied. Reference to the objections from villages and individuals to the sharing out effected by the provincial and local oligarchy is therefore necessary in order to understand the political and social implications of the new tax. Such objections show the extent to which the sharing out was unfair and the resistance offered towards the taxes, which resulted in high levels of tax evasion.

The aim of this contribution is the presentation of the political conflicts between the Archbishop of Lima, Toribio Alfonso de Mogrovejo (1538–1606), together with his faithful collaborator the parish priest Alonso de Huerta, and the cathedral chapter. Though the chapter was a sort of senate or permanent council of the diocese clergy, it by no means acted as an institution involved in the missionary commitments of Archbishop Mogrovejo. On the contrary, its members rallied around against what they considered to be a violation of their economic privileges, and on several instances they denounced the Archbishop, as well as the parish priest Alonso de Huerta, arguing that they intruded in the internal rules of the chapter.

The aim of this paper is to analyse and compare the structure of rural properties of three houses of mendicants in Castile during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Analysing these three case studies we can gain a wide chronological view to show how the mendicants evolved to adapt to the feudal structures. We can also compare their role as members of the dominant class with that of other feudal lords, specially with other ecclesiastical institutions of previous foundation.