Protectionist but globalised? Latin American custom duties and trade during the pre-1914 belle époque

While it is true that Latin American republics had no rival on maximising revenues from custom collection during the belle époque, this paper shows that Latin American countries were also generous importers, only behind the larger commercial countries of Western Europe in terms of imports per capita. Latin American citizens were much more linked to international trade than citizens of most regions of the world. Their relation to the world economy was tighter both via their imports and their exports relative to their population and income levels. This paper comes to show that there is no contradiction between the high custom collection by the Latin American republics and their high level of interaction with the global economy in the pre-1914 belle époque, although large country differences can be observed when descending from the regional to the national level.First globalisation, Imports, Exports, Custom duties, Protectionism, Latin America

Value and depreciation of mineral resources over the very long run: An empirical contrast of different methods

The paper contrasts empirically the results of alternative methods for estimating the value and the depreciation of mineral resources. The historical data of Mexico and Venezuela, covering the period 1920s-1980s, is used to contrast the results of several methods. These are the present value, the net price method, the user cost method and the imputed income method. The paper establishes that the net price and the user cost are not competing methods as such, but alternative adjustments to different scenarios of closed and open economies. The results prove that the biases of the methods, as commonly described in the theoretical literature, only hold under the most restricted scenario of constant rents over time. It is argued that the difference between what is expected to happen and what actually did happen is for the most part due to a missing variable, namely technological change. This is an important caveat to the recommendations made based on these models.Value, depreciation, mineral assets, net price, user costs, imputed income, environmental accounts

The role of Mexico in the first oil shortage: 1918-1922, an international perspective

In 1921 Mexico produced a quarter of world’s petroleum, making the country the second largest producer in the world, but by 1930 it only accounted for 3 per cent of world’s production. To date the discussion has mostly relied on events taking place in Mexico for explaining the decline of the industry. Very little attention has been placed to developments in petroleum industry elsewhere, except Venezuela. Practically no attention has been paid to the reasons for the rise of oil output in Mexico. This neglects the massive changes taking place in the petroleum industry worldwide during the Great War years and its aftermath, and overall ignores the shortage of oil that occurred in the world’s markets between 1918-1921. These are crucial events in order to understand the early rise of the Mexican oil industry and set the basis for a better understanding of the subsequent sudden decline.World’s petroleum supply, Mexico, First World War, energy shortage

On the accuracy of Latin American trade statistics: A nonparametric test for 1925

This paper proposes a nonparametric test in order to establish the level of accuracy of the foreign trade statistics of 17 Latin American countries when contrasted with the trade statistics of the main partners in 1925. The Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Ranks test is used to determine whether the differences between the data registered by exporters and importers are meaningful, and if so, whether the differences are systematic in any direction. The paper tests for the reliability of the data registered for two homogeneous products, petroleum and coal, both in volume and value. The conclusion of the several exercises performed is that we cannot accept the existence of statistically significant differences between the data provided by the exporters and the registered by the importing countries in most cases. The qualitative historiography of Latin American describes its foreign trade statistics as mostly unusable. Our quantitative results contest this view.Latin America, statistical accuracy, international trade data, nonparametric methods, petroleum trade, coal trade.

Energy as an indicator of modernisation in Latin America by 1925

In absence of comparable macroeconomic indicators for most of the Latin American economies beyond the 1930s, this paper presents an estimate of the apparent consumption per head of coal and petroleum for 25 countries of Latin American and the Caribbean for the year 1925, doubling the number of countries for which energy consumption estimates were previously available. Energy consumption is then used as an indicator of economic modernisation. As a result, the paper provides the basis for a quantitative comparative analysis of modernisation performance beyond the few countries for which historical national accounts are available in Latin America.Energy consumption, modernisation, Latin America, petroleum, coal

Educational Activities to Help Transferring Knowledge in Nuclear: The Seminars of Spanish Young Generation in Nuclear (Jóvenes Nucleares)

From its creation, Spanish Young Generation in Nuclear (Jóvenes Nucleares, JJNN), a non-profit organization that depends on the Spanish Nuclear Society (SNE), has as an important scope to help transferring the knowledge between those generations in the way that it can be possible

From Secondary School To University: Attracting Young Students Towards A Career In Nuclear

From its creation, Spanish Young Generation in Nuclear (Jóvenes Nucleares, JJNN), a non-profit organization that depends on the Spanish Nuclear Society (SNE), has as an important scope to help spread knowledge about nuclear energy, not only pointing out its advantages and its role in our society, but also trying to correct some of the ideas that are due to the biased information and to the lack of knowledge. To try to have success in that goal, some high school lectures were taught and it has been organized regularly a Basic Course on Nuclear Science and Technolog

Modern energy consumption and economic modernisation in Latin America and the Caribbean between 1890 and 1925

In the absence of comparable macroeconomic indicators for most of the Latin American economies before the 1930s, the apparent consumption of energy is used in this paper as a proxy of the degree of modernisation of Latin America and the Caribbean. This paper presents an estimate of the apparent consumption per head of modern energies (coal, petroleum and hydroelectricity) for 30 countries of Latin American and the Caribbean for 1890 to 1925, multiplying the number of countries for which energy consumption estimates were previously available. As a result, the paper provides the basis for a quantitative comparative analysis of modernisation performance beyond the few countries for which historical national accounts are available in Latin America.Energy consumption, economic modernisation, Latin America

Datasets for transcriptomics, q-proteomics and phenotype microarrays of polyphosphate metabolism mutants from Escherichia coli

Indexación: Scopus.Author acknowledges Fondecyt Grants 1120209, 1121170 and Anillo ACT-1107Here, we provide the dataset associated with our research article on the polyphosphate metabolism entitled, “Multi-level evaluation of Escherichia coli polyphosphate related mutants using global transcriptomic, proteomic and phenomic analyses”. By integrating different omics levels (transcriptome, proteome and phenome), we were able to study Escherichia coli polyphosphate mutant strains (Δppk1, Δppx, and Δppk1-ppx). We have compiled here all datasets from DNA microarrys, q-proteomic (Isotope-Coded Protein Labeling, ICPL) and phenomic (Phenotype microarray) raw data we have obtained in all polyP metabolism mutants.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352340917300860?via%3Dihu

An educational initiative between the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and Spanish Young Generation in Nuclear (Jóvenes Nucleares): The Seminar of Nuclear Safety in Advanced Reactors

Jóvenes Nucleares (Spanish Young Generation in Nuclear, JJNN) is a non-profit organization and a commission of the Spanish Nuclear Society (SNE). The Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Technical University of Madrid, UPM) is one of the most prestigious technical universities of Spain, and has a very strong curriculum in nuclear engineering training and research. Finishing 2009, JJNN and the UPM started to plan a new and first-of-a-kind Seminar in Nuclear Safety focused on the Advanced Reactors (Generation III, III+ and IV). The scope was to make a general description of the safety in the new reactors, comparing them with the built Generation II reactors from a technical point of view but simple and without the need of strong background in nuclear engineering to try to be interesting for the most number of people possible