PRICES AND WAGES IN THE 1890 CRISIS IN BUENOS AIRES

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe growth of Argentina’s economy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was so great that it was called “The Great Expansion”. This explains the interest of economic historians to observe, analyze and explain the conditions under which such growth occurred. One of the topics is the 1890 crisis, or “Baring Crisis”. This was seen by contemporaries as the worst economic debacle of the nineteenth century. Studies in economic history have seen this crisis both their macroeconomic aspects, and from the impact that would have occurred in the population. Also, in recent years there has been a renewed interest in the production and analysis of series of prices and wages, as key to analyzing economic indicators economy conditions and living conditions and inequality. Given this historiographical renewal, in this article a new series of prices and wages of Buenos Aires in the late nineteenth century are presented. With this new information, and open discussion with previous works, a new perspective on the evolution of prices and wages is provided, with a different perspective on the impact of the 1890 crisis.