This paper examines sovereign lending to Latin America and the Caribbean from 1820 to 1913. We examine four waves of capital flows where defaults were followed by a return to market access. In spite of extended default, countries kept promising high returns that attracted international investors again and again: financial autarky thus gave way to eras of high integration to global markets as measured by sovereign risk pricing. We discuss imperfections of the sovereign debt institutional context in the region and discuss a menu of options that some countries used to seek funds in the global financial markets after defaults. The parallel with the modern Latin American and Caribbean sovereign bond market experience is striking.

The objective of this paper is twofold. First, it identifies and categorizes the currency crises suffered by Argentina from 1825 to 2002. Second, it looks for regularities in the behaviour of key macroeconomic variables in the neighbourhood of crises by means of graphic analysis, non-parametric and econometric techniques. We found that expansions in public expenditures as well as increases in the debt to GDP ratio and falls in the rate of growth of bank deposits contribute to spur the probability of crisis. Unfavourable external conditions, jointly with domestic imbalances, help to explain very deep crises or crashes.

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.

The settlement and expansion of the Portuguese colonies in South America were made possible by slave labour; however, the historical size of enslaved Native and African groups is largely unknown. This investigation compiles extant statistics on the population of «Brazil» by race and state for the pre-census period from 1545 to 1850, complementing them with headcount estimates based on sugar, gold, and coffee production; pre-contact indigenous populations; and trans-Atlantic slave voyages. The resulting panel of demographic data illustrates national and regional racial transitions encompassing the colonial era. Brazil's population was of Native descent but became predominantly African in the 18th century; people of European ancestry remained a minority for another 200 years.