INVESTIGADORES
CUESTA Eduardo Martin
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Prices, Wages and Economic Change. The Espacio Peruano Region, 1590-1800.
Autor/es:
MARTIN CUESTA Y CARLOS NEWLAND
Lugar:
Utrecht
Reunión:
Workshop; Towards a Global History of Prices and Wages; 2004
Institución organizadora:
International Institute of Social History - Utrecht University
Resumen:
In this paper price series for the Espacio Peruano Region (todays Bolivia, Chile and Peru) are elaborated covering the period 1591-1790. An index of relative prices is built that compares land intensive versus labor intensive products. The series allow testing (and confirming) the traditional vision presented by demographic historians, that has been based more on qualitative than on quantitative data (since no general and comparable censuses exist for the region before the end of the XVIII century). The price series, jointly with information on wages, allow to conclude that during the XVIII century a rise in productivity occurred, despite an important increase in population. A possible explanation to this phenomenon is that the increase in productivity was caused by a liberalization of labor markets, specially affecting the Indian population.
