Economic Retardation in Nineteenth-Century Brazil

Bibliographic Data

ID3378520
AuthorsNathaniel H Leff (Columbia University, corresponding author)
Year1972
Volume25
Issue3
Pages489-507
Publication date1972-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Economic History Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-0117 • E-ISSN: 1468-0289
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1468-0289.1972.tb02189.x
OpenAlexW1992749878
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited1

U UNLIKE the United States and the other regions of recent settlement, nineteenth-century Brazil did not develop as an characterized by relatively high wages. At first appearance this may seem surprising, for Brazil also had an abundance of land and high land-labour ratios, and might have been expected to follow a similar course with respect to productivity and to the distribution of income. Apart from its interest for students of comparative economic history, Brazil's economic retardation also raises some general analytical questions. The economy's conditions appear to contrast with models of underdevelopment whose chief feature is surplus labour. The Brazilian case also does not fit some other standard explanations of the economic retardation of the less developed countries. During most of the century the country was free both from far-reaching colonial domination and from the substantial political instability which affected some other Latin American countries following independence. Brazil's overall economic retardation can also not be attributed to some of the conditions characteristic of an enclave economy in which expanding exports have only limited effects on aggregate development. As noted below, conditions in the export activities made for a high foreign-trade multiplier; and after the i840's the country implemented a protective tariff policy which stimulated domestic manufacturing and led to the formation of strong linkages between export growth and industrialization.2 Thus, the nineteenth-century Brazilian experience offers an opportunity to focus on the causes of overall retardation in conditions which appear to have been relatively favourable for development. Given the relative paucity of primary and secondary materials on Brazil's economic history, the analysis and hypotheses advanced in this article can only be considered as preliminary. First of all it is necessary to discuss the main features of the nineteenth-century Brazilian economy, to provide the setting for a consideration of the conditions which appear to have limited the country's economic development

Economics · Economic Theory and Policy

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