Search

Analysis of a sample of around 4,600 women born between the 1860s and the 1990s finds that the height of adult females increased by about 5 cm, primarily from the 1860s to the 1880s and during the second half of the twentieth century—representing the greatest known improvement in women’s biological welfare in Chilean history. Chilean women have never been as tall as they are today. The secular height increase was higher for men than for women, but only slightly. The increasing sexual dimorphism in stature since the 1920s (achieving its highest value ever during the 1990s) suggests that male stature is more sensitive than female stature to changes in environmental conditions. Adult female heights also correlate with positive gradients in literacy and occupational status, and negative height differentials are in evidence between the native (Mapuche) population and the population with European ancestry.

We provide the first estimates of gender income and land inequality in Chile during the first decades after independence, when Chile was a predominantly agrarian society. We have used a new source: the records of the first agricultural censuses ever made for any Latin American republic. We found that there were over six times more male landowners than women, and that male owners gathered up to 87% of total agricultural income (of those paying the catastro ). On the positive side, we found that female landownership was more widespread than has previously been assumed by Chilean historians, although it was declining in relative terms. We have also identified the main elite women agrarian entrepreneurs, finding that one of the biggest landowners of this period was a woman, who has been ignored in the historiography. We have documented her economic activities, as well as those of many other prominent women agricultural entrepreneurs, thus showing that women’s involvement in crucial entrepreneurship activities started earlier than previously been acknowledged, from colonial times.

This article provides the first series of Chilean adult male height for the whole of the twentieth century. The height of adult males increased by about 5.5 cm during the twentieth century, primarily during the second half of this period. This is the greatest improvement in biological welfare in Chilean history; Chilean males have never been as tall as they are today. Using a sample of around 36,371 individuals, we document the evolution of the average height of Chilean soldiers (male) born from the 1900s to the 1990s. This sample can be safely taken as a good proxy of the average height of Chilean male population for the period under study. We provide an explanation of both the main determinants of physical stature and the rapid increase in height in Chile over this period.

This article provides the first series of adult male height for 19th-century Chile. Our aim was not only to assess the trends indicated by height during this period, but also the relationship between stature and both GDP per capita and exports. Having analysed our data, our primary conclusion is that there was a reduction in height for cohorts born in the 1850s and 1860s with respect to cohorts born between 1820 and 1840. Height stagnated thereafter, with small to no improvement towards the end of the 19th century, in line with other Latin American countries for which there is comparable evidence. The increase in per capita GDP and exports during the second half of the century did not result in better biological welfare, as was the case in other Latin American countries during similar export booms.

A sample of over 44 thousand Chilean marines was used to estimate the trend of mean heights from the 1820s to the 1890s. We confirm that there was height stagnation in the last decades of the nineteenth-century Chile despite sizeable per capita GDP growth; there were hidden nutritional costs to this economic growth. This situation resembles a similar puzzle in antebellum USA or early industrial Britain, but in the case of Chile GDP growth is not explained by industrialization but by export-led-growth. Still, the results are similar: height stagnation. Regarding the determinants of adult male height, our data also convincingly showed that there was a significant correlation between height and literacy. There was a positive correlation between height and white ethnicity, and, linked to this, a strong negative correlation between stature and eyes reported as “black”. Finally, living in urban environments (or environments with higher population density) also negatively affected height.

This article deals with the emergence of joint stock companies (JSC) in Chile during the third quarter of the nineteenth century. We have built the first database related to JSC for this period, providing useful information about its demography. We found that: JSC funded the emergence of new key industries fostering economic growth; there was a high level of concentration in JSC ownership; most shareholders were Chilean, which means that the main investment projects in mining, banking and transport were funded with national capital; Chilean businessmen were active in mobilizing capital funds and adopting new technologies. The entrepreneurial spirit shown by local businessmen, be they miners, bankers, agriculturalists or traders is undeniably present, in a transitional phase to capitalism. Editorial note: Following the protocols of Revista de Historia Industrial-Industrial History Review, and as asked by Ms. E. Emmanouilidi, the reference Pepelasis, Ioanna Sapfo and Emmanouilidi, Elpianna (2013), “Joint Stock Company births: historical coincidence and economic causality (Greece, 1830-1909)”, Working Papers, No. 51614, Munich Personal RePEc Archive, has been removed from the original article. A new version of the article "The birth of joint stock companies in Chile, 1849-1875" has been uploaded in a pdf file, excluding therefore the above mentioned reference. Este artículo trata sobre el nacimiento de las sociedades anónimas (SA) en Chile durante el tercer cuarto del siglo xix. Hemos construido la primera base de datos relacionada con SA para este periodo, aportando importante información sobre su demografía. Con todo, encontramos que: las SA financiaron la emergencia de nuevas e importantes industrias que promovieron crecimiento económico; hubo un alto grado de concentración en la propiedad de estas SA; la mayoría de los accionistas eran chilenos, lo que se traduce en que los principales proyectos en minería, banca y transporte fueron financiados con capital nacional; los empresarios chilenos de la época fueron muy activos movilizando fondos de inversión y adoptando nuevas tecnologías. Quedan pocas dudas respecto del espíritu empresarial desplegado por empresarios locales, fuesen estos mineros, banqueros, agricultores o comerciantes, en una fase de transición al capitalismo. Nota editorial: Siguiendo los protocolos de la Revista de Historia Industrial-Industrial History Review, y a petición de la Sra. E. Emmanouilidi, la referencia Pepelasis, Ioanna Sapfo and Emmanouilidi, Elpianna (2013), “Joint Stock Company births: historical coincidence and economic causality (Greece, 1830-1909)”, Working Papers, No. 51614, Munich Personal RePEc, ha sido eliminada del artículo original. Se ha subido una nueva versión del artículo "El nacimiento de las sociedades anónimas en Chile, 1849-1875" en un archivo pdf, excluyendo por lo tanto la citada referencia.

Resumen Este artículo analiza la situación del sector agropecuario y la composición de la élite agraria en Chile en la primera mitad del siglo XIX, un periodo insuficientemente tratado en la literatura especializada. Para ello hemos empleado información procedente de fuentes escasamente utilizadas en la historiografía agraria, como son El Agricultor y, especialmente, el Catastro Agrícola. A partir de este último, hemos construido y procesado una base de datos de medio millón de registros provenientes de los tres primeros catastros agrícolas, realizados en 1832, 1838 y 1852. Junto con establecer las razones del atraso del sector agrario, y una muy desigual distribución tanto de la propiedad de la tierra como del ingreso agrícola, nuestros resultados indican una notable persistencia de las élites agrarias entre fines de la Colonia y las primeras décadas de Chile independiente, así como una significativa correlación entre la clase de grandes agricultores de mayores ingresos y la élite política. Abstract This article assesses the state of the agrarian sector and the composition of the Chilean agrarian elite during the first half of the nineteenth century, a rather unexplored period in Chile's agrarian historiography. We have used several untapped sources such as the Catastro Agrícola and El Agricultor. From the former we have built and processed a half a million records database. From the former we have built and processed a database consisting of half a million records from the first three agricultural censuses of 1832, 1838 and 1852. We have explained why the agricultural sector was so backwards in Chile, while also established a very unequal distribution of both land tenure and agricultural income. Finally, our results show a great persistence within the composition of the agrarian elites between late colonial times and the first decades of republican Chile, as well as a significant correlation between the large landowners with highest agricultural income and the political elite.

This article provides the first height estimates for the adult population for any period of Chilean history. Based on military records, it gives an analysis of the average heights of male soldiers in the last eight decades of the colonial period, c.1730–1800s. The average height of Chilean men was around 167 centimetres, making them on average taller than men from Mexico, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Venezuela, but of a similar height to men from Sweden. However, Chilean men were clearly shorter than men in neighbouring Argentina, the USA and the UK. Chilean height remained stable during the 1740–1770s, but it declined by some 2–3 centimetres between the 1780 s and the 1800s, in line with a fall in real wages due to increasing food prices and population growth.

La investigación tiene como objetivo analizar si las políticas públicas que hoy definen las reglas del juego para el desarrollo productivo en la agricultura permiten mitigar los efectos relacionados con el calentamiento global, y si estas son suficientes para evitar que el cambio climático presione sobre las dificultades ya existentes en el sector agrícola, o para impedir el surgimiento de nuevos factores de riesgo o amenazas que afecten la seguridad alimentaria del país. Así mismo, busca proponer algunas recomendaciones para el diseño de políticas públicas que permitan minimizar los riesgos y amenazas en relación con la adaptación de la producción agrícola al cambio climático y, por ende, asegurar el acceso físico, social y económico a los alimentos suficientes y nutritivos que satisfagan las necesidades de la población nacional y atenúen su efecto el ámbito multidimensional de la seguridad. En tal sentido, se busca responder a la siguiente pregunta: ¿Qué desafíos plantea el cambio climático a la agricultura chilena en materia de seguridad alimentaria?