![]() Chile declined until the mid-seventies and Argentina until the mid-eighties, both seeing their per-capita GDP fall to half that of the US. It was the only Latin American country to reach that level.Īs Venezuela skyrocketed, the decline of Argentina and Chile began. In the mid-thirties, Venezuela experienced a spectacular leap that didn’t end until 1950, when the income of an average Venezuelan was around 70% of the GDP per capita of the US. Colombia and Peru grew dramatically between 19. Some interesting, but not miraculous, things started happening. And in Brazil, Colombia and Peru, productivity per person was around 10% that of an American. Nothing similar was seen elsewhere.Īt the beginning of the 20th century, Venezuela and Mexico’s GDP per capita was barely a fifth of that of an average person in the US. Until 1940, Argentina’s GDP per capita was close to 60% that of the eUS, and Chile’s between 40 and 50%. Argentina and Chile began the 20th century far above the rest of the region. What happened to Latin America? Why does the continent have so few episodes of sudden, spectacular growth? Since the end of the 19th century, there was a clear difference between two groups of countries. When the country is wealthier, they return en masse to work. Women tend to participate at the beginning of the development period, then leave the labor market. Lucas and Sáenz attribute that sudden growth to three factors: first, access to technology, especially technology that rapidly develops modern sectors and attracts people to industries and cities secondly, the demographic transition, during which the population has fewer children and invests more in their education and third, the participation of women in the labor force. Singapore and Taiwan had their golden decade in the 1970s and China in the first decade of the 20th century. The Asian tigers exhibit the most lasting miracles, with South Korea at the head, between 19, three spectacular decades for the country, longer even than Japan’s miracle, which occurred between 19. Ireland had its own during the turn of the century and Ukraine in 2007. In almost all the countries of Western Europe, except the United Kingdom and Spain, the miracles occurred in the fifties. In the Middle East, there were eight economic miracles, some of them linked to the petroleum boom in the sixties and seventies, and others as recent as 2005 (Iraq and United Arab Emirates). In Eastern Europe, 11 countries did, mostly in the last 20 years. The contrast with other regions could not be more devastating: in Africa, 11 countries had economic miracles. They compare the results with the United States economy: an economy is doing well when it moves closer to the most advanced economy in the world, not just when its local businesspeople are making money.Ī devastating fact is that Latin America, the land of miracles, has just one economic miracle, which occurred in Venezuela during the forties and fifties. They define as a “miracle” an episode in which a country’s GDP or value-added per capita doubled over a decade. ![]() ![]() Looking at data on economic miracles, Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Lucas, from the University of Chicago, and professor Luis Felipe Sáenz, from the University of South Carolina, found that since the beginning of the last century, around the world, a considerable number of economic miracles have appeared. ![]() Economics and politics have little or nothing to do with folk beliefs. Miraculous figures are ubiquitous across Latin America.īut economists and politicians across the continent have been less efficient when it comes to producing economic miracles. The patron saint of Brazil is Our Lady of Aparecida, whose following goes back to 1717 in the Villa of Garatingueta, where a group of fishermen discovered her image and then made a miraculous catch. In Argentina’s Salta province, the Lord and the Virgin of the Miracle is venerated. In Lima, the Vicentine Brothers have a parish dedicated to the Lady of the Miracle of Lima. In Colombia, the Virgin of Miracles is the patron saint of Tunja.
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