IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ahe/dtaehe/1406.html

Navigating in Troubled Waters: South American Exports of Food and Agricultural Products in the World Market, 1900-1938

Author

Listed:
  • Vicente Pinilla

    (Faculty of Economics and Business Studies, University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain)

  • Gema Aparicio

    (Agri-food Economic History Group, University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain)

Abstract

The present study offers a new quantitative base to analyze the evolution of exports of agricultural and food products from South America in the complicated period between 1900 and 1938. The data base has been elaborated from the information published by the International Institute of Agriculture (IIA), in those years. The paper also constructs a terms of trade series for South American agricultural exports, using the data of Grilli-Yang (1988), updated by Pfaffenzeller (2007). It is considered to be the first time of offering for this period a series for the evolution for the terms of trade in the region which takes into account in its construction the relative weight of the exports of the distinct agricultural products. An explanation is provided of the position of South America in the world market for agricultural products on the eve of the First World War. Then it is analyzed first the impact of the war on the volume of agricultural exports from the region and in second place that of the Great Depression. Finally the evolution of the terms of trade of South American agricultural exports throughout the period is analyzed..

Suggested Citation

  • Vicente Pinilla & Gema Aparicio, 2014. "Navigating in Troubled Waters: South American Exports of Food and Agricultural Products in the World Market, 1900-1938," Documentos de Trabajo (DT-AEHE) 1406, Asociación Española de Historia Económica.
    • Handle: RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:1406
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://media.timtul.com/media/web_aehe/dt-aehe-1406_20240108094723.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephan Pfaffenzeller & Paul Newbold & Anthony Rayner, 2007. "A Short Note on Updating the Grilli and Yang Commodity Price Index," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 21(1), pages 151-163.
    2. Williamson, Jeffrey G., 2013. "Trade and Poverty: When the Third World Fell Behind," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262518598, December.
    3. Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2008. "Globalization and the Great Divergence: Terms of Trade Booms and Volatility in the Poor Periphery 1782-1913," Working Papers 08-07, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC).
    4. Grilli, Enzo R & Yang, Maw Cheng, 1988. "Primary Commodity Prices, Manufactured Goods Prices, and the Terms of Trade of Developing Countries: What the Long Run Shows," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 2(1), pages 1-47, January.
    5. Ocampo, José Antonio & Parra-Lancourt, Mariángela, 2010. "The terms of trade for commodities since the mid-19th century," Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(1), pages 11-43, March.
    6. William Hynes & David S. Jacks & Kevin H. O'rourke, 2012. "Commodity market disintegration in the interwar period," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 16(2), pages 119-143, May.
    7. César Yáñez & Rodrigo Rivero & Marc Badia-Miró & Anna Carreras-Marín, 2012. "La población de los países latinoamericanos desde el siglo XIX hasta el 2008. Ensayo de historia cuantitativa," Documentos de Trabajo (DT-AEHE) 1202, Asociación Española de Historia Económica.
    8. Pinilla, Vicente & Ayuda, Maria-Isabel, 2002. "The political economy of the wine trade: Spanish exports and the international market, 1890–1935," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 51-85, April.
    9. Pinilla, Vicente & Ayuda, María-Isabel, 2010. "Taking advantage of globalization? Spain and the building of the international market in Mediterranean horticultural products, 1850–1935," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(2), pages 239-274, August.
    10. Kevin H. O'Rourke & Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2001. "Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262650592, December.
    11. Unknown, 1928. "Rye in Its Relations to Wheat," Wheat Studies, Stanford University, Food Research Institute, vol. 4(05), pages 1-58, March.
    12. Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2009. "Globalization and the Poor Periphery before 1950," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262513501, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Raúl Serrano & Vicente Pinilla, 2014. "New directions of trade for the agri-food industry: a disaggregated approach for different income countries, 1963–2000," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 23(1), pages 1-22, December.
    2. Miguel Tinoco-Zermeño & Francisco Venegas-Martínez & Víctor Torres-Preciado, 2014. "Growth, bank credit, and inflation in Mexico: evidence from an ARDL-bounds testing approach," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 23(1), pages 1-22, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Raúl Serrano & Vicente Pinilla, 2014. "New directions of trade for the agri-food industry: a disaggregated approach for different income countries, 1963–2000," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 23(1), pages 1-22, December.
    2. Manuel Llorca-Jaña, 2014. "The impact of early nineteenth-century globalization on foreign trade in the Southern Cone: A study of British trade statistics," Investigaciones de Historia Económica - Economic History Research (IHE-EHR), Journal of the Spanish Economic History Association, Asociación Española de Historia Económica, vol. 10(01), pages 46-56.
    3. Miguel Tinoco-Zermeño & Francisco Venegas-Martínez & Víctor Torres-Preciado, 2014. "Growth, bank credit, and inflation in Mexico: evidence from an ARDL-bounds testing approach," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 23(1), pages 1-22, December.
    4. Chilosi, David & Federico, Giovanni, 2015. "Early globalizations: The integration of Asia in the world economy, 1800–1938," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 1-18.
    5. Yamada, Hiroshi & Yoon, Gawon, 2014. "When Grilli and Yang meet Prebisch and Singer: Piecewise linear trends in primary commodity prices," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 193-207.
    6. Kym Anderson, 2016. "Agricultural Trade, Policy Reforms, and Global Food Security," Palgrave Studies in Agricultural Economics and Food Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-46925-0, March.
    7. Erten, Bilge & Ocampo, José Antonio, 2013. "Super Cycles of Commodity Prices Since the Mid-Nineteenth Century," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 14-30.
    8. Federico Tadei & Nektarios Aslanidis & Oscar Martinez, 2025. "Trade costs and the integration of British West Africa in the global economy, c. 1840–1940," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 78(2), pages 474-498, May.
    9. Marc Badia-Miro & Enric Tello, 2013. "An agency-oriented model to explain vine-growing specialization in the province of Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) in the mid-nineteenth century," Working Papers in Economics 290, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.
    10. Kym Anderson, 2023. "Agriculture's globalization: Endowments, technologies, tastes and policies," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1314-1352, September.
    11. Aslanidis, Nektarios & Martínez Ibáñez, Oscar & Tadei, Federico, 2020. "The Integration of West Africa in the Global Economy, 1842-1938," Working Papers 2072/417678, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    12. Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2015. "Latin American Inequality: Colonial Origins, Commodity Booms, or a Missed 20th Century Leveling?," NBER Working Papers 20915, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. David Colman, 2010. "Agriculture's terms of trade: issues and implications," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 41(s1), pages 1-15, November.
    14. Duarte, Rosa & Pinilla, Vicente & Serrano, Ana, 2021. "The globalization of Mediterranean agriculture: A long-term view of the impact on water consumption," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    15. Nazlioglu, Saban, 2014. "Trends in international commodity prices: Panel unit root analysis," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 441-451.
    16. Sambit Bhattacharyya & Jeffrey Williamson, 2013. "Distributional Impact of Commodity Price Shocks: Australia over a Century," CEH Discussion Papers 019, Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    17. Barraquand, F. & Martinet, V., 2011. "Biological conservation in dynamic agricultural landscapes: Effectiveness of public policies and trade-offs with agricultural production," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 910-920, March.
    18. Fernandez, Viviana, 2019. "A readily computable commodity price index: 1900–2016," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 31(C).
    19. Byrne, Joseph P. & Fazio, Giorgio & Fiess, Norbert, 2013. "Primary commodity prices: Co-movements, common factors and fundamentals," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 16-26.
    20. Winkelried, Diego, 2021. "Unit roots in real primary commodity prices? A meta-analysis of the Grilli and Yang data set," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 23(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • N56 - Economic History - - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Extractive Industries - - - Latin America; Caribbean
    • N70 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • N76 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - Latin America; Caribbean
    • Q17 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agriculture in International Trade

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:1406. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Andreu Seguí Beltrán (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeheeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.