GLOBALIZATION AND GROWTH

Some describe the first half of the nineteenth century as decades of lost Latin American economic growth while the region struggled with independence conflicts and their aftermath. Latin America’s growth performance in the second half of the twentieth century was also disappointing. By comparison, during the half century between the 1860s and the 1910s, Latin American economies performed fairly well: they kept pace with European growth rates, grew more than other peripheral regions, but grew less than the big winners of the period, the United States and those European countries catching up with Britain. The term “fairly well” may understate Latin American growth given that, after all, it took place during a century that created a truly huge economic gap between the core and the rest of the periphery.

Table 1.1 documents that performance for real per capita income and purchasing-power parity – adjusted real wages of unskilled urban workers, both relative to Great Britain. Using the macroeconomist’s rhetoric, there was some Latin American catching up on the hegemonic industrial leader in Europe: per capita income in Latin America rose from 38 to 42 percent of Britain’s. Because Britain was losing that leadership to some powerful latecomers, perhaps a better comparison is with a more inclusive European industrial core, including Britain, France, and Germany: here Latin American performance is a little less impressive, with its relative position to that of the fast-growing core falling from 53 to 51 percent. Another relevant comparison is between Latin America and the source of its European immigrants, Iberia and Italy: here, Latin America improved its European immigrants, Iberia and Italy: here, Latin America improved its position from near-parity, with income per capita about 97 or 98 percent of Latin Europe, to a 5 percent advantage.