Desigualdad y especialización en el crecimiento de las economías templadas de nuevo asentamiento, 1870–1940

This paper analyse the evolution of income and wealth distribution in the settler economies in order to evaluate the manner in which the historical conditions generated certain productive structure and trade pattern and, therefore, the economic dynamic in the long run. We consider two channels to interpret the relations between the distributive pattern and the productive and trade structure: the aggregate demand and the institutional and geographic factors. The analysis focus on four proximate causes of the specialization, i.e., learning capacity, innovation and technical progress, accumulation of fixed capital and formation of human capital. We use a comparative approach to look for the main differences in the development of settler economies during the period 1870–1940. Firstly, we present the historical context and, then, some econometric exercises are tested to give more insights to this view. The evidence shows that economies with high inequality present an economic structure characterized by production with small incorporation of knowledge and low added-value. As a result, in the long run they verify worse performances than other economies with a more equitable distributive pattern.