Chapter 8 - Relative Declining in the 19th Century

Abstract

This chapter makes an educated guess at the evolution of the stock of human capital in Brazil, Sweden, Spain, and Great Britain in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is seen that the scarce data available and simple assumptions on the way markets work point to an expected completely different evolution of the stock of human capital in these countries. While stocks in Sweden and Spain started to depart from that in Brazil, they also narrowed the gap with that found in Great Britain, especially in the second half of the 19th century. The Brazilian stock, however, continued to depart from that in Great Britain and consequently lagged behind the European periphery. Thus a slower accumulation of human capital in the 19th century is the major source of Brazilian relative development delay when comparisons are made to European countries.