Numeracy Selectivity of Spanish Migrants in Hispanic America (16th-18th Centuries)

Mari Carmen Pérez-Artés ()
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Mari Carmen Pérez-Artés: Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

No 2101, Documentos de Trabajo (DT-AEHE) from Asociación Española de Historia Económica

Abstract: This paper assesses the human capital composition of Spanish migrants who went to colonial Latin America during the 16th to 18th centuries. To estimate the numeracy levels of the Spaniards who left Spain to settle in the colony, I use the age-heaping based method to measure the human capital. The main finding is that the Spanish migrants were positively selected. Differences are observed in the human capital of those who chose to settle in Mexico, with a higher level of numeracy, than those who chose Peru. These differences could be due to the viceroyalty structure and the presence of religious orders that encouraged the emigration of people with greater human capital to Mexico. Finally, it seems that inequality between Spaniards and natives, in terms of human capital, was larger in Mexico at the end of the 16th century reducing the gap circa 1710.

Keywords: human capital; numeracy; migrations; colonial Latin America (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N00 N30 N33 N36 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2021-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-mig
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:2101

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