IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v116y2003i3-4p381-98.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Monarchy, Monopoly and Mercantilism: Brazil versus the United States in the 1800s

Author

Listed:
  • Zanella, Fernando C
  • Ekelund, Robert B
  • Laband, David N

Abstract

GDP was $738 per capita in Brazil and $807 in the United States in 1800, but was $4,854 in the latter in 1900 and actually fell from $738 in Brazil by 1913. Relative factor endowments and institutions, broadly considered, are twin traditional explanations for the extremely diverse growth rates. In this paper we offer a complementary analysis of specific political and economic structures to help explain the success and persistence of monopoly restrictions in Brazil and the failure of internal mercantilism in the U.S. We conclude that Brazilian institutions provided a ripe and efficient environment for rent seeking. Such conditions did not exist in the U.S., a fact that helped produce the vast difference in growth in the 1800s. Copyright 2003 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Suggested Citation

  • Zanella, Fernando C & Ekelund, Robert B & Laband, David N, 2003. "Monarchy, Monopoly and Mercantilism: Brazil versus the United States in the 1800s," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 116(3-4), pages 381-398, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:116:y:2003:i:3-4:p:381-98
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://journals.kluweronline.com/issn/0048-5829/contents
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fernando Zanella & Christopher Westley, 2009. "The Western Expansion as a Common Pool Problem: The Contrasting Histories of the Brazilian and North American Pioneers," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(3), pages 775-789, July.
    2. Rosolino A. Candela & Vincent J. Geloso, 2021. "Trade or raid: Acadian settlers and native Americans before 1755," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(3), pages 549-575, September.
    3. Fernando Zanella & Christopher Westley, 2015. "Degredados, Their Human Agency, and Micro Institutions in Colonial Brazil: An Institutionalist Reinterpretation," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(1), pages 143-156, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:116:y:2003:i:3-4:p:381-98. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.