CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

This paper presents an estimate of income distribution in the rural sector of the Buenos Aires province during the central decades of the 19th century, a period featured by important economic growth framed by the incorporation to the Atlantic economy. After presenting the results of previous attempts to measure wealth inequality and relative factor prices, the results of an estimate of total and functional income distribution based on the construction of social tables are presented. The results improve previous achievements and open the way for methodological discussions on how to approach inequality in pre-statistical societies. The main result is challenging: while, on the one hand, income distribution as measured by relative price movements deteriorate and wealth is increasingly concentrated, total inequality diminishes and the wage share increases, due to the important expansion of agrarian employmen