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- Title
Economic Retardation in Nineteenth-Century Brazil.
- Authors
Leff, Nathaniel H.
- Abstract
The article discusses the economic retardation of Brazil in the 19th century. During most of the century the country was free both from far-reaching colonial domination and from the substantial political instability which affected some other Latin American countries following independence. Brazil's overall economic retardation can also not be attributed to some of the conditions characteristic of an enclave export economy in which expanding exports have only limited effects on aggregate development. Despite an abundant supply of land and high land-labour ratios, nineteenth-century Brazil did not develop as a relatively high-wage economy. The highest productivity sectors in agriculture were in the export activities. Wages and the demand for labour within Brazil were also very much influenced by the institution which dominated the country's labour market, slavery. The supply price of free labour was determined primarily by the opportunity cost of the income forgone in its alternative occupations.
- Subjects
BRAZIL; ECONOMIC conditions in Brazil; EXPORTS; AGRICULTURE; LABOR market; OPPORTUNITY costs
- Publication
Economic History Review, 1972, Vol 25, Issue 3, p489
- ISSN
0013-0117
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2593434