Wealth inequality in colonial Hispanic-America: Montevideo in the late 18th century

María Inés Moraes, Rebeca Riella (), Carolina Vicario () and Pablo Marmisolle ()
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Rebeca Riella: Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración. Instituto de Economía
Carolina Vicario: Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración. Instituto de Economía
Pablo Marmisolle: Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración. Instituto de Economía
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Pablo Marmissolle

No 21-18, Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) from Instituto de Economía - IECON

Abstract: There has recently been renewed interest in pre-industrial inequality among economic historians, but there are still few case studies about wealth inequality in pre-industrial Latin America, particularly involving colonial Spanish America before 1820. This paper presents a study of wealth inequality in Montevideo, an area of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, in the late colonial period. The work addresses the level of wealth inequality, the composition of wealth, and its relationship with social structure in Montevideo in the late 18th century. It uses a dataset of probate inventories and population records as the main sources, estimates a Gini index, and presents a stylized picture of the social structure, analyzing the differences in wealth between social groups in 1772-1773. The main finding is that wealth inequality in Montevideo was similar to that of the English colonies of North America in 1774, and to the less unequal pre-industrial economies in Europe at the same time. Although most of society formed a relatively wealthy middle class, however, some important assets were strongly concentrated at the top of society.

Keywords: pre-industrial inequality; wealth distribution; colonial Latin-America (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N36 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2021-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12008/30191

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ulr:wpaper:dt-18-21

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