COLONIAL INSTITUTIONS AND LONG-RUN ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE IN COLOMBIA: IS THERE EVIDENCE OF PERSISTENCE?

A recent body of literature has claimed that differences in long-run economic performance within the Americas stem from the different institutional structures established during colonial times. This research tries to find evidence of institutional persistence in Colombia using direct measures of colonial institutions, particularly the intensity of encomiendas, slavery and State presence. The paper deals with the possible endogeneity of colonial institutions developing an instrumental variables strategy based upon colonial institutional design. We find evidence of institutional persistence of encomienda, slavery and State capacity on a series of current socioeconomic outcomes.Institutions, institutional persistence, colonial history, long run development

Exploring the Roots of Chronic Underdevelopment: The Colonial \u3ci\u3eEncomienda\u3c/i\u3e and \u3ci\u3eResguardo\u3c/i\u3e and their Legacy to Modern Colombia

Colombian society has been historically marked by socioeconomic inequality, restricted social mobility, and institutional weakness. In order to understand the reasons for the country´s continuous struggle to achieve inclusive economic progress and stability since its independence from Spain in 1819, it is necessary to understand its colonial history. Central to this were the two most important colonial economic institutions, the encomienda and the resguardo, both designed for the exploitation of unfree Indian labor. Even when these were slowly replaced by more modern haciendas worked by free farm workers, the economic and political life of the country continued to be determined by older forms of subordination and exploitation established in the earliest days of Spanish colonial rule. This thesis focuses on the eastern highlands of northern South America, principally the area around Bogota, and analyzes how the encomienda, resguardo, and hacienda were fundamental in determining how wealth was acquired in the region, and the extent of the economic opportunities available to various sectors of society. Colombia’s institutionalized hierarchy based on racial and social distinctions had given economic and political advantages to a small group of Spaniards and their descendants living in the country’s most important urban centers. This is as much true today as in colonial times. The vast majority of the population, especially in rural areas, has remained politically and economically marginalized. An examination of these historical developments will provide a more comprehensive understanding of the seemingly intractable nature of Colombia’s economic limitations and social turmoil today

Persistencia de la segregación en educación: Evidencia a través de apellidos de élites históricas y grupos étnicos en Colombia

La desigualdad en el acceso a educación de alta calidad puede obstaculizar el papel de la educación como motor de movilidad social. Estudiando el caso de Colombia, uno de los países más desiguales y menos móviles del América Latina, nuestro objetivo es evaluar si las diferencias contemporáneas en el acceso a educación de alta calidad tienen sus raíces en el pasado. Con fuentes históricas y contemporáneas definimos atributos de estatus social de varios grupos históricos. Asumiendo que los apellidos suficientemente raros son parte de la misma familia extensa, seguimos dinastías de indígenas, encomenderos, dueños de esclavos miembros de diferentes élites educativas, sociales y empresariales de los siglos XVII, finales del siglo XIX y principios del siglo XX. Usando fuentes administrativas evaluamos si el estatus histórico de cada grupo social está asociado con el acceso a instituciones educativas privilegiadas. Los resultados muestran que el estatus social original de los grupos históricos predice el acceso a educación de alta calidad. Los grupos étnicos continúan siendo segregados de la educación de alta calidad contemporánea. Mientras que, entre más antigua es la élite más probabilidad hay de que converja a la media en estatus social. Además encontramos evidencia de homogamia contemporánea dentro de las élites históricas y los apellidos étnicos. Los resultados permiten concluir que el sistema educativo en Colombia reproduce patrones de exclusión social que están arraigados en el pasado.Inequality in access to high-quality education can hinder the ability of education to promote intergenerational mobility. Looking at the case of Colombia, one of the most unequal and least mobile countries in Latin America, we evaluate whether contemporary differences in access to high-quality education have deep roots in the past. We use several past and contemporary sources to define social status attributes for several historical groups. Assuming that sufficiently rare surnames are part of the same extended family, we trace dynasties of indigenous, encomenderos (Spaniard colonial officers), 19th century slave-owners, and members of different educational, social, and business elites of the 17th, late 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Using microdata from administrative sources, we provide evidence of social segregation in education and test if the historical status of each social group is associated with access to disadvantageous or privileged educational institutions. The results show that the original social status of the historical groups is highly associated with their contemporary performance in educational outcomes. We explore assortative mating as a mechanism for perpetuating segregation in education. We find evidence of homogamy within the historical elites and ethnic surnames. We conclude that the educational system in Colombia reproduces patterns of social exclusion rooted in the past.Persistencia de la segregación en educación: Evidencia a través de apellidos de élites históricas y grupos étnicos en Colombia Enfoque La rígida estructura social del régimen colonial se refleja hoy en Colombia, donde los indígenas y afrocolombianos mantienen los peores resultados socioeconómicos. Empíricamente, la literatura ha demostrado que el régimen colonial estableció el tipo de instituciones que son persistentes en el tiempo. Instituciones extractivas como la encomienda y la esclavitud tuvieron efectos negativos a largo plazo a nivel nacional y subnacional. Sin embargo, los efectos de estas instituciones en el acceso a educación para diferentes grupos sociales no han sido evaluados. Contribución Esta investigación tiene como objetivo evaluar si la segregación en la educación hoy en día tiene sus orígenes en el pasado. Para remediar la falta de datos longitudinales asumimos que apellidos raros pertenecen a una misma línea familiar que nos permite seguir múltiples generaciones en el tiempo. Siguiendo dinastías de indígenas, Afrocolombianos, encomenderos, dueños de esclavos, miembros de diferentes élites educativas, sociales y empresariales de los siglos XVII, finales del siglo XIX y principios del siglo XX, evaluamos si el estatus histórico de cada grupo social está significativamente asociado con el acceso a instituciones educativas privilegiadas en la actualidad. Resultados Los resultados sugieren que la segregación social en la educación en Colombia reproduce patrones de exclusión social que se remontan hasta el período colonial. Por ejemplo, la Corona Española estableció reglas de acceso a la educación superior que obligaban a los candidatos a demostrar su pureza de sangre e hidalguía. Aunque estos requisitos se relajaron después de la Independencia a principios del siglo XIX, los resultados muestran que la segregación en el acceso a la educación superior continúa. Sin embargo, encontramos diferencias significativas en el acceso a la educación contemporánea entre grupos históricos lo que indica que los efectos a largo plazo de las instituciones coloniales han sido desiguales entre los grupos sociales. El estatus de élite de los encomenderos y propietarios de esclavos no ha persistido con el tiempo, por el contrario, los indígenas y afrocolombianos continúan ausentes de las instituciones educativas de alta calidad. Finalmente, nuestros resultados indican que más atención se debe prestar a la persistencia de las élites de finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX, ya que este grupo ha sido el más exitoso en mantener su estatus social. Frase destacada Concluimos que el sistema educativo en Colombia reproduce patrones de exclusión social arraigados en el pasado y refleja parcialmente la persistencia de estructuras sociales coloniales segregadas

\u3ci\u3eTierra y Libertad\u3c/i\u3e: The Social Function Doctrine and Land Reform in Latin America

Latin America has been caught for centuries in a vicious cycle of land consolidation and land reform; the issue perennially resurfaces since concentration of land and associated resources results in conflict.\u27 Latin American nations are among the world\u27s leaders when it comes to the inequality of land distribution. Land reform, or agrarian reform, as it is more commonly referred to in Latin America, is hardly a new phenomenon. As we will show, the need to develop a policy to redress the consolidation of lands by a powerful few and redistribute it in the name of equity and development has its pedigree in Greco-Roman times. In Latin America land reform began in colonial times and has persisted through the present, resisted by elites who benefited from the largesse of the colonial powers. In the colonial era, the land and its resources was all the crown could offer to the conquistadors, colonial elites, and to the church. As a result, the newly independent states immediately entrenched a resistant, wealthy class of latifundistas, or large landed estate holders, setting the stage for a legacy of revolution and attempts at land reform

Native Colombia: Contact, Conquest and Colonial Populations

Studies done on Colombia’s population history during the last three decades have been influenced by the ideas, methods and approaches of Woodrow Borah. We will discuss three issues that he and Sherburne Cook considered in the course of their work on Latin American demography – probable size of native populations on the eve of European contact; the effects of climate and elevation on the intensity of different groups’ decline; and the impact on native populations of diseases brought from the Old World to the New. We examine the information available on Colombia’s diverse highland and lowland regions, and in that context explore questions that have arisen recently regarding nutrition and health levels of native people prior to European conquest.Los estudios que se han realizado sobre la historia demográfica de Colombia durante las tres últimas décadas se han visto influidos por las ideas, métodos y planteamientos de Woodrow Borah. Discutiremos tres aspectos que él y Sherburne Cook han tenido en cuenta a lo largo de sus trabajos sobre la demografía latinoamericana: el volumen de la población nativa en vísperas del contacto con los europeos; los efectos del clima y de la altitud en el declive de la intensidad demográfica de los diferentes grupos; y el impacto en la población nativa de las enfermedades procedentes del Viejo Mundo. Examinamos la información disponible en el altiplano y en la zona costera de Colombia y, en dicho contexto, valoramos cuestiones que han surgido recientemente con relación a los niveles de nutrición y salud de la población nativa antes de la conquista europea

\u3ci\u3eTierra y Libertad\u3c/i\u3e: The Social Function Doctrine and Land Reform in Latin America

Latin America has been caught for centuries in a vicious cycle of land consolidation and land reform; the issue perennially resurfaces since concentration of land and associated resources results in conflict.\u27 Latin American nations are among the world\u27s leaders when it comes to the inequality of land distribution. Land reform, or agrarian reform, as it is more commonly referred to in Latin America, is hardly a new phenomenon. As we will show, the need to develop a policy to redress the consolidation of lands by a powerful few and redistribute it in the name of equity and development has its pedigree in Greco-Roman times. In Latin America land reform began in colonial times and has persisted through the present, resisted by elites who benefited from the largesse of the colonial powers. In the colonial era, the land and its resources was all the crown could offer to the conquistadors, colonial elites, and to the church. As a result, the newly independent states immediately entrenched a resistant, wealthy class of latifundistas, or large landed estate holders, setting the stage for a legacy of revolution and attempts at land reform

Origins of Latin American inequality

How deep are the roots of Latin America’s economic inequalities? In this chapter we survey both the history and the literature about the region’s extreme economic disparities, focusing on the most recent academic contributions. We begin by documenting the broad patterns of national and sub-national differences in income and inequality, building on the seminal contributions of Engerman and Sokoloff (2000; 2002, 2005) and aiming to capture different dimensions of inequality. We then proceed thematically, providing empirical evidence and summarizing the key recent studies on colonial institutions, slavery, land reform, education and the role of elites. Finally, we conduct a “replication” exercise with some seminal papers in the literature, extending their economic results to include different measures of inequality as outcomes

Economic and Political Inequality in Development: The Case of Cundinamarca, Colombia

Is inequality harmful for economic growth? Is the underdevelopment of Latin America related to its unequal distribution of wealth? A recently emerging consensus claims not only that economic inequality has detrimental effects on economic growth in general, but also that differences in economic inequality across the American continent during the 19th century are responsible for the radically different economic performances of the north and south of the continent. In this paper we investigate this hypothesis using unique 19th century micro data on land ownership and political office holding in the state of Cundinamarca, Colombia. Our results shed considerable doubt on this consensus. Even though Cundinamarca is indeed more unequal than the Northern United States at the time, within Cundinamarca municipalities that were more unequal in the 19th century (as measured by the land gini) are more developed today. Instead, we argue that political rather than economic inequality might be more important in understanding long-run development paths and document that municipalities with greater political inequality, as measured by political concentration, are less developed today. We also show that during this critical period the politically powerful were able to amass greater wealth, which is consistent with one of the channels through which political inequality might affect economic allocations. Overall our findings shed doubt on the conventional wisdom and suggest that research on long-run comparative development should investigate the implications of political inequality as well as those of economic inequality.

Factor Endowments, Inequality, and Paths of Development Among New World Economics

Whereas traditional explanations of differences in long-run paths of development across the Americas generally point to the significance of differences in national heritage or religion, we highlight the relevance of stark contrasts in the degree of inequality in wealth, human capital, and political power in accounting for how fundamental economic institutions evolved over time. We argue, moreover, that the roots of these disparities in the extent of inequality lay in differences in the initial factor endowments (dating back to the era of European colonization). We document -- through comparative studies of suffrage, public land, and schooling policies -- systematic patterns by which societies in the Americas that began with more extreme inequality or heterogeneity in the population were more likely to develop institutional structures that greatly advantaged members of elite classes (and disadvantaging the bulk of the population) by providing them with more political influence and access to economic opportunities. The clear implication is that institutions should not be presumed to be exogenous; economists need to learn more about where they come from to understand their relation to economic development. Our findings not only contribute to our knowledge of why extreme differences in the extent of inequality across New World economies have persisted for centuries, but also to the study of processes of long-run economic growth past and present.

Book Review Essay: The Mature Phase: Four Generations of Scholarship on Colonial Mesoamerica and New Spain

This essay reviews the following works: Native Wills from the Colonial Americas: Dead Giveaways in a New World. Edited by Mark Christensen and Jonathan Truitt. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2016. Pp. vii + 276. $55.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781607814160. Strange Lands and Different Peoples: Spaniards and Indians in Colonial Guatemala. By W. George Lovell, Christopher H. Lutz, with Wendy Kramer and William R. Swezey. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 339.$34.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780806143903. Indians and the Political Economy of Colonial Central America, 1670–1810. By Robert W. Patch. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 284. $36.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780806144009. The Mixtecs of Oaxaca: Ancient Times to the Present. By Ronald Spores and Andrew K. Balkansky. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013. Pp. xvi + 328.$45.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780806143811. Emotions and Daily Life in Colonial Mexico. Edited by Javier Villa-Flores and Sonya Lipsett-Rivera. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 257. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9780826354624