Official Ecuadorian gross domestic product (GDP) data begin in 1950. Prior, only preliminary estimates were available, based on very scattered evidence and broad assumptions. In this paper, we estimate new GDP figures for Ecuador for 1900–50. These are based on the quantitative and qualitative information available for the period, using extensive primary and secondary sources. The new data series allows analysing Ecuador’s economic growth and structural change and comparing them to industrialised core countries and other countries in the region. Unlike previous estimates, our series shows a sustained divergence of Ecuador from the core countries during the first half of the 20th century.

We study how Spanish equity investors assessed firms’ exposure to political risk during the regime change of the 1930s. We show that shifts in political uncertainty regularly predicted a general deterioration of future investment opportunities in the stock market. However, we also find that firms differed in their sensitivity to uncertainty, reflecting important differences in their perceived exposures to political risk. The negative impact of uncertainty was significantly milder for firms with political connections to republican parties. The price of some stocks increased in periods of heightened uncertainty, thus allowing investors to hedge against reinvestment risk. In the case of firms that became targets of hostile political actions, we observe that investors frequently adjusted their assessment of individual stocks to changes in firm-specific political circumstances. Over the whole period of the Second Republic, investors’ systematic preference for safer equity hedges led to a continuous decline in the price of stocks perceived as more exposed to political risk.

In Colombia, there has been very little discussion about the epidemiological transition in the 20th century, therefore, there are few empirical studies, and this mainly focus on the second half of the 20th century, and on the factors associated with improvements in mortality indicators. In this paper, we define three stages of the epidemiological transition in the country during the period 1918–1998, with special emphasis on changes in mortality rates, causes of death and the contribution of different age groups. Likewise, a co-integration analysis is carried out to model the long-term relationship between the mortality rate and the variables of nutrition, public health, education and economic growth. Finally, we show the results of the structural change tests of the mortality rates for pneumonia and tuberculosis to examine the impact of the arrival of sulphonamides and penicillin in Colombia.

We study the resilience of banks to macroeconomic slowdowns in a context of lax microprudential regulations: Colombia during the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s. We find that numerous banks underperformed during the crisis, as their shareholders and board members tunnelled resources through related lending, loan concentration and accounting fraud. These practices were enabled by power concentration within banks, lax regulation and the expectation of bailouts. We provide evidence for this tunnelling mechanism by comparing the local banks and business groups that failed during the crisis, the local banks and business groups that survived the crisis and the former foreign banks – all of which survived the crisis. The regulatory changes enacted during the crisis also lend support to our proposed mechanism.

El objetivo de este artículo es aplicar diferentes metodologías para medir la pobreza absoluta de ingresos en sectores urbanos en Chile entre 1940 y 1992. La perspectiva metodológica combina el food share method de la CEPAL, las mediciones Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) y la propuesta de Prados de la Escosura. La investigación muestra que: 1) el modelo ISI inicialmente reduce la pobreza, pero se estanca al finalizar la Segunda Guerra Mundial; 2) en los años cincuenta, la crisis opaca los avances de la década anterior; 3) entre 1964 y 1971, la pobreza se reduce drásticamente; 4) durante el gobierno militar (1973-1990), tras superar la crisis inflacionaria de los setenta, la pobreza vuelve a niveles históricos presentes desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial y luego desciende gradualmente desde 1983.

In 1962, Spain implemented significant banking law changes to boost competition. This study investigates their impact on provincial banking concentration from 1964 to 1975, utilising novel provincial-level private bank balance sheet data and including savings banks. Results show a substantial decline in concentration across most provinces. Panel data models identify the determinants of banking concentration: larger populations and higher gross domestic product per capita correlate with lower concentration, while agrarian-focused provinces exhibit higher concentration. The provincial financial sector’s structure also matters, with a higher number of branches and headquarters per capita associated with reduced banking concentration. These findings refine existing literature and provide new insights into the intricate relationship between banking concentration and regional economies in Spain.