Person:
Dobado González, Rafael

First Name

Rafael

Last Name

Dobado González

Affiliation

Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Faculty / Institute

Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales

Department

Economía Aplicada, Estructura e Historia

Area

Historia e Instituciones Económicas

Identifiers

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 15

Two worlds apart: Determinants of height in late 18th century central Mexico
(Elsevier, 2017) Dobado González, Rafael; García Hiernaux, Alfredo
Anthropometric literature on the American territories of the Hispanic monarchy before their independence is still scarce. We attempt to expand the field with a case study that includes some important novelties. Albeit our main source, the military records of the Censo de Revillagigedo (conducted in the early 1790s), has already been used, the sample size and the geographical scope are unprecedented: 19,390 males of four ethnicities (castizos, españoles, mestizos, and mulatos) aged from 16 to 39 from 24 localities, including towns and villages scattered across central regions of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. We build a database that, complemented with information on resource endowments obtained from other sources, permits to analyze the determinants of height. Our results show the importance of spatial differences as well as the significance of ethnicity, occupation, rurality, age and resource endowments as determinants of height. Unprivileged mulatos are only 0.5 cm shorter than, assumedly privileged, españoles in the “first world” (El Bajío) and 1.3 cm taller in the “second world” (Eastern Central Highlands). In turn, living in the “first world” implies being between nearly 1.5 cm and 5 cm taller than the inhabitants of the “second world”. Our estimates of physical statures are placed within an international comparative context and offer a relatively “optimistic” picture.
Colonial Origins of Latin American Inequality? Some Reflections Based on New Empirical Evidence
(Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, Universidad Carlos III, 2010) Dobado González, Rafael; García Montero, Héctor
This paper attempts at contributing to the ongoing debate on the historical roots of the high economic inequality of contemporary Iberian America. Basically empirical, our approach departs from mainstream scholarship. We show new data on wages and heights in several viceroyalties that: 1) suggest relatively medium to high levels of material welfare among the commoners in Bourbon Hispanic America; 2) allow us to build indexes of economic inequality. An international comparison of those indexes casts some doubts on the widely accepted view that Viceroyal America’s economy was exclusively based on extremely unequal or extractive institutions, as it has been popularized by the influential works by Engerman and Sokoloff (1994, 2002, 2005), Acemoglu et al. (2002).[RESUMEN] Este trabajo pretende contribuir al debate sobre las causas históricas de la alta desigualdad económica en la Iberoamérica contemporénea y lo hace en forma básicamente empírica, lo que es bastante inusual. En él se muestran nuevos datos sobre salarios y estaturas de varios virreinatos que: (1) sugieren niveles de bienestar material relativamente medios o altos para grupos no privilegiados de la Hispanoamérica borbónica; y (2) permiten la construcción de índices de desigualdad económica. La comparación internacional de esos índices arroja dudas sobre la verosimilitud del ampliamente extendido supuesto de que la economía de la América española se basada exclusivamente en instituciones extremadamente desiguales o extractivas, que ha sido popularizada por los influyentes trabajos de Engerman y Sokoloff y Acemoglu et al.
El trabajo en las minas de Almadén, 1750-1855
(Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Servicio de Publicaciones, 2009-04-02) Dobado González, Rafael; Anes, Gonzalo
La investigación aborda el estudio de los aspectos laborales más destacados del proceso productivo del mercurio en las minas de Almadén entre mediados de los siglos XVIII y XIX. Tras pasar revista al papel desempeñado por el azogue en las Finanzas Públicas, se analizan las técnicas mineras y metalúrgicas, la organización del trabajo y la productividad, asi como la demografía local, los efectos orgánicos del trabajo en las minas, los salarios y los mecanismos establecidos para facilitar la conservación y captación de trabajadores. Junto a los objetivos empíricos, la investigación plantea algunas observaciones teóricas en el campo de la economia laboral.
La globalización hispana del comercio y el arte en la Edad Moderna
(2013-10) Dobado González, Rafael
Este artículo muestra algunos aspectos destacados de un fenómeno histórico de dimensiones planetarias: la globalización comercial y artística que, iniciada en la segunda mitad del siglo XVI, tuvo como principal protagonista durante la Edad Moderna a los territorios americanos, asiáticos y europeos de la Monarquía Hispánica. Los intercambios internacionales (básicamente, plata americana a cambio de objetos asiáticos más o menos lujosos) que siguieron al descubrimiento, en 1565, por Urdaneta del “tornaviaje” entre Manila y Acapulco tuvieron profundos efectos sobre las formas de producir y de consumir tanto en el Viejo Mundo y como en el Nuevo. La trascendencia histórica de estas interacciones sin precedentes tal vez ha pasado un tanto inadvertida a los economistas e historiadores económicos españoles. Probablemente, el papel central desempeñado en esta globalización por el Virreinato de la Nueva España tampoco ha sido valorado adecuadamente. ABSTRACT: This article shows some important aspects of a worldwide, historical phenomenon: the globalization of commerce and art which started in the second half of the sixteenth century and had the American, Asian and European territories of the Hispanic Monarchy as main protagonist during the Early Modern Era. The international exchanges –basically, American silver in return for more or less luxurious goods from Asia- that followed the discovery by Urdaneta, in 1565, of the “tornaviaje” between Manila and Acapulco had a profound influence on the forms of production and consumption in both the Old World and the New. Spanish economists and economic historians have probably underscored the historical significance of these unprecedented interactions. The central role played by the Viceroyalty of New Spain in this globalization has perhaps not been properly valued either.
Globalization, De-Industrialization and Mexican Exceptionalism 1750-1879
(2006-06) Dobado González, Rafael; Gómez Galvarriato, Aurora; Williamson, Jeffrey G.
Like the rest of the poor periphery, Mexico had to deal with de-industrialization forces between 1750 and 1913, those critical 150 years when the economic gap between the industrial core and the primary-product-producing periphery widened to such huge dimensions. Yet, from independence to mid-century Mexico did better on this score than did most countries around the periphery. This paper explores the sources of Mexican exceptionalism with de-industrialization. It decomposes those sources into those attributable to productivity events in the core and to globalization forces connecting core to periphery, and to those attributable to domestic forces specific to Mexico. It uses a neo-Ricardian model (with non-tradable foodstuffs) to implement the decomposition, and advocates a price dual approach, and develops a new price and wage data base 1750-1878. There were three forces at work that account for Mexican exceptionalism: first, the terms of trade and Dutch disease effects were much weaker; second, Mexico maintained secular wage competitiveness with the core; and third, Mexico had the autonomy to devise effective ways to foster industry. The first appears to have been the most important.
West versus Far East: early globalization and the great divergence
(Springer Verlag, 2015) Dobado González, Rafael; García Hiernaux, Alfredo; Guerrero, David E.
This paper addresses two important topics in recent economic historiography: globalization and the great divergence. We first present a search for statistical evidence in the Far East of an ‘‘Early Globalization’’ comparable to the one ongoing in the West since the mid-eighteenth century. Moreover, we analyze the extent of the integration of rice markets in Central southeast China and Japan during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and its functioning in comparison with Western countries. Finally, the relevance of our findings for the debate on the great divergence is discussed. Our primary conclusions are as follows: (1) in contrast to the West, no international integration of the grain markets existed in the Far East during the Early Modern Era; (2) significant levels of domestic market integration were reached in some Far Eastern countries; (3) integration of the domestic grain markets may be reached through various combinations of agents and policies with dissimilar effects on long-run economic growth, which are better in the West and worse in the Far East. We suggest that the absence of an ‘‘Early Globalization’’ in the Far East reveals the existence of certain economic and institutional limitations in this part of the world that may have made contribution to its ‘‘Great Divergence’’ with the West from at least the eighteenth century.
Globalization, de-industrialization and Mexican exceptionalism 1750-1879
(Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales. Decanato, 2006) Dobado González, Rafael; Gómez Galvarriato, Aurora; Williamson, Jeffrey G.
En este artículo se analizan las fuentes de la excepcionalidad de México con una desindustrialización. Descompone las fuentes en las que la productividad atribuibles a los acontecimientos en el núcleo de las fuerzas de la globalización y de la conexión básica a la periferia, y los atribuibles a las fuerzas específicas de Mexico. Se utiliza un modelo neo-ricardiano (con los productos alimenticios no comercializables) para la aplicación de la descomposición, y aboga por un enfoque de doble precio, se desarrolla una nueva base de datos de precios y salarios entre 1750-1878.
Neither so low nor so short! Wages and heights in eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries colonial Hispanic America
(Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales (ICEI), 2009) Dobado González, Rafael; Garcia, Hector
Based on substantial empirical work, our paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the historical causes of contemporary Latin America problems of development (slow growth and high inequality). It shows solid quantitative evidence on wages and heights for Bourbon Hispanic America that, in our opinion, challenges mainstream assumptions about the –allegedly negative- effects of Spanish colonialism on the welfare of common people. Purchasing capacity of miners and labourers in terms of grain and, especially, of meat was generally equal to -or higher than- that in most parts of Europe and Asia. Heights of some 5000 recruits in the colonial army and militias show a significant inter-regional variance. In South-eastern New Spain they turn out to be slightly below Western standards whereas in Northern Mexico and Venezuela (Maracaibo) they are comparable to those of Central, Eastern and Southern Europe. Thus, wages of ordinary Hispanic Americans in eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were not low by international standards. Neither were their physical statures always shorter than the European norm in the middle of the eighteenth century. Our results might carry other far-reaching implications. On the one hand, an increasing and influent scholarship characterizes colonial Hispanic America as an extreme case of economy based on extractive institutions and inequality [Engerman and Sokoloff (1994, 2002, 2005); Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2002)]. Was it really the case? Our response is somewhat sceptical. On the other hand, calculating ratios of heights and real wages to GDP per capita estimates [Maddison (2009)] for 1820 converts Hispanic America into a clear outlier within a wide sample of countries. This finding suggests that available estimations on Bourbon Hispanic America GDP per capita should be revised upwards.
Corn market integration in porfirian Mexico
(Instituto Complutense de Análisis Económico. Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2004) Dobado González, Rafael; Marrero, Gustavo A.
This paper deals with a polemic and relevant aspect of the economic history of Porfirian Mexico: the integration of agricultural domestic markets. Since corn was the staple product of the commercial agricultural sector and also the main subsistence crop, it is the protagonist of this story. Panel techniques, similar to those used by Barro and Sala-i-Martín (1992), are applied to a price convergence model. Our analysis reveals that Mexico was not an exception in the international panorama of market integration in late 19th and early 20th centuries [O’Rourke and Williamson (1999)]. Although still incomplete on the eve of the Mexican Revolution, corn market integration substantially increased during the Porfiriato and ended up further than estimated by Kuntz (1995a, 1995b, 1996, 1999a and 1999b). Railroads were not only indispensable to the economic growth of Mexico, as Coatsworth (1984) showed, in particular to the export sector, but they also played a positive and significant role in the process of corn market integration.
The Integration of Western Hemisphere Grain Markets in the Eighteenth Century: Early Progress and Decline of Globalization
(Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales (ICEI), 2009-09) Dobado González, Rafael; Guerrero, David
In this work it is shown evidence supporting the idea that, if globalization is defined as the convergence of commodity prices between distant markets, the process started and advanced gradually in the eighteenth century instead of suddenly appearing after 1820, as claimed by the canonical version developed in a series of important works by O’Rourke and Williamson (1999, 2002, 2004). We use long time-series of grain prices for several markets in Western Europe and the Americas to explore the extent and dynamics of market integration across the Western Hemisphere throughout the eighteenth century. An innovative methodology, consisting in studying the standard deviations of the innovations in the ARMA model of pairwise relative prices between markets, is used. A general decrease in price dispersion is observed when the early eighteenth century is compared with the three decades preceding 1793. Neither Argentina nor Mexico participated in this general trend towards closer market integration across the Western Hemisphere. From 1793 to 1828 we observe a substantial increase in dispersion between markets. After this first backlash, globalization resumed at an unprecedented pace since it was favored by the transport revolution and other factors.