New Methodologies for a Latin American Economic History on the 19th Century: The South-Central Andes

Abstract

The economic literature of nineteenth-century Latin America has been dominated by its focus on the import-export complex and by comparisons with the United States and Western Europe, discussing why Latin America did not develop like the former regions. The use of import-export data is deficient in un- derstanding economic development of the region; comparisons about what Latin America is not does not help understanding how development occurred. Instead, the essay develops new concepts such as the internal economy, as well as methodologies and categories to analyze the changes in the Latin American economy from 1830 to 1920, using as a case study the south-central Andes.