Producto regional en Uruguay durante la Primera Globalización (1872-1908): desigualad decreciente y convergencia entre regiones

Abstract

We present estimates of regional products in Uruguay during the First Globalization (from the 1870s to the years previous to the World War I). Our results show a decreasing and irregular trend in the regional inequality which is consistent with a process of income convergence between provinces. The irregularity of the trajectory would be evidence of the performance of centrifugal and centripetal forces that alternated influences during the period. The forces that trended to decentralize production were the combination of abundant natural resources suitable for livestock production throughout the territory with the reduction of transport costs that made possible to access more easily to Montevideo and, through its port, to the global market. Centripetal forces would have responded to a process characterized by the increasing importance of Montevideo as urban and administrative center, a huge market of goods and services and a dynamic centre of labour market. In addition, Montevideo evidenced the increasing importance of commercial and financial activities (and its potential for making industrial development more flexible), which was only interrupted by the economic and financial crisis of 1890-1891. In facts, the crisis constituted one of the main equalizing forces of the period. The result was to start the twentieth century with levels of regional inequality lower than those recorded in the 1870s-1880s.