The electric revolution in Latin America

Xavier Tafunell ()
Additional contact information
Xavier Tafunell: https://www.upf.edu/web/econ/faculty/-/asset_publisher/6aWmmXf28uXT/persona/id/3418611

Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Abstract: Latin America participated in the electric revolution which profoundly transformed the most developed Western economies between 1880 and 1930. The electrification of Latin America began relatively soon after these economies, but it was incapable of keeping up with them. Public electric lighting was introduced early in the big Latin American cities, where electric trams started running at almost the same time as in Europe, and electricity spread rapidly in the mining sector. In the most advanced countries or areas in the region, the manufacturing industry substituted the steam engine with the electric motor, following the example of industry in the United States and Europe. Nevertheless, towards 1930 electricity consumption per inhabitant for Latin America was far below that of the more advanced economies, and only the Latin American countries which lead the process of electrification had reached levels of electric consumption that were similar to those of the late industrialised European countries. One of the most striking features of the electric revolution in Latin America is rooted precisely in the enormous national differences. These differences are indicative of the great economic inequalities existing in the heart of the region and these nations’ highly diverse capacity for economic modernisation.

Keywords: Latin American Growth; Comparative Development; Technological Progress; Energy Transition; Electricity. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L94 N16 N76 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-his and nep-lam
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://econ-papers.upf.edu/papers/1236.pdf Whole Paper (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:upf:upfgen:1236

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).