Montevideo, Uruguay
26-27 March 2015
Scientific Organisers:
Luis Bértola, Universidad de la Républica, Uruguay
Ewout Frankema, Wageningen University, Utrecht University
The Research Institute for Development, Growth and Economics (RIDGE) and
the Faculty of Social Sciences, Universidad de la República, Uruguay, are
pleased to announce a call for papers for the RIDGE/PHES Workshop on
Comparative studies of the Southern Hemisphere in global economic history
and development, Uruguay, on 26-27 March 2015. The deadline for submission
is 15 December 2014.
The 2015 meeting will take place within the framework of the First RIDGE
March Forum, along with the following workshops:
- Economics of Crime, March 23-24
- Inequality and Poverty, March 24-25
- Political Economy, March 26-27
The RIDGE Forums aim to favor the spread of high quality research in
economics by bringing together top local and regional researchers working
on the frontier of knowledge and policymakers. Participants to the four
workshops are welcome to attend the other workshops.
The following guest speakers will take part in the workshops:
Professor Gareth Austin from The Graduate Institute of International and
Development Studies (IHEID), Geneva
(http://graduateinstitute.ch/directory/_/people/austin)
Gareth Austin is Professor of International History at the Graduate
Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) Geneva. He
obtained his bachelor’s degree in History from the University of
Cambridge and his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Birmingham.
His research and teaching interests are in African and in comparative and
global economic history. His primary research has focused on West Africa,
especially Ghana and the pre-colonial kingdom of Asante. He is a former
editor of the Journal of African History and former president of the
European Network in Universal and Global History (ENIUGH). His is a member
of the Academia Europaea and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Professor Jeffrey Williamson Emeritus Faculty from Harvard University
(http://scholar.harvard.edu/jwilliamson)
Jeffrey Williamson is Laird Bell Professor of Economics, Emeritus,
Honorary Fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of
Wisconsin (Madison), Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic
Research and Research Fellow for the Center for Economic Policy Research.
He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from the University
Wesleyan, his M.A. in Economics from Stanford University, his M.A.
Honorary from Harvard University and his Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford
University. He does research on economic history and the contemporary
Third World.
Professor Branki Milanovic from Luxemburg Income Study Center (LIS Center)
(http://www.gc.cuny.edu/liscenter-branko-milanovic)
Branko Milanovic is a leading scholar in income inequality who joined The
Graduate Center as Visiting Presidential Professor and Senior Scholar in
the LIS Center. He obtained his Ph.D. in Economics/Statistics from the
University of Belgrade. He is Presidential Fellow at City University of
New York. His major fields are income inequality, globalization and global
equity. He wrote numerous articles on methodology and empirics of global
income distribution and effects of globalization.
The focus
In 2008 Robert Bates, John Coatsworth and Jeffrey Williamson published a
paper on the ’lost decades’ of the early-independence era in Africa
(1970-2000) and Latin America (1820-1870), pointing to some interesting
analogies in the way both regions struggled with the transition from a
colonial to post-colonial social, political and economic order. There are
several reasons to give the Africa-Latin America comparison some further
thought. Firstly, both regions share a history of colonial occupation and
European settlement, which has shaped a great deal of post-colonial
development trajectories, including a legacy of deep-seated social,
economic and political inequality. Secondly, the exploitation of natural
resources has been key to long-term economic development patterns in both
regions and has provoked serious debates about the sustainability of
growth. Thirdly, Africa and Latin America share profound experiences with
debt crises and macro-economic mismanagement, shaped by
particular political-economic conditions. It would be very valuable to
have a more systematic overview of the similarities and differences in the
policy approaches towards crisis-management and the long term
institutional responses to economic crisis. A forth reason to be mentioned
is that the population of African origin was and still is a very important
part of the Latin American population, with a huge economic, social and
cultural impact.
The Latin American-Australasian comparison, by contrast, has already deep
roots. More precisely, the comparison between Argentina, Uruguay,
Australia and New Zealand has been, until now, a very active field of
research. Denoon, D. (1983) Dieguez, H. (1969) Duncan, T. & Fogarthy, J.
(1984), Lloyd, C. (1998), Platt, D.C. and di Tella, G. (eds) (1985),
Álvarez, Bértola and Porcile (2007), Schlüter (2013), Álvarez 2013 are
some examples. The key topic of this comparison is twofold. On the one
side, trying to explain why regions with apparent similar endowments
achieved different growth rates and standards of living. On the other
side, trying to explain why, in spite of these differences, the four
countries have been losing positions in the world ranking, probably as a
result of their resource endowments. Topics of interest have been the
structure of land property, political institutions, science and technology
policies, as well as commercial policy.
This session invites those involved in development economics to engage
into and further explore the potential of the Southern Hemisphere
comparisons. The comparison may involve the way in which the different
regions have dealt with their variegated colonial legacies, have managed
their natural resources, their fiscal systems, their trade relations, FDI
and education systems. The comparison may also involve the way in which
both regions were drawn into the Atlantic economy after 1492, how
indigenous (pre-colonial) states were transformed in this process and how
systems of labour coercion operated at both sides of the Southern
Atlantic. The comparison may as well involve the current economic boom in
Africa (1995-present) with both the boom of the late 19th Century in Latin
America and Australasia and the current boom in rich resource regions.
Emphasis may be placed in: a) the different/similar global economic
context in which both booms take place and b) the different/similar
domestic institutional contexts in these regions now and then. The
comparison can involve living standard studies (heights, real wages, GDP,
education, health) or financial markets and crisis management. Indeed,
there is a vast open space of potentially valuable perspectives. Such
research promises to go beyond regional insights and supports a necessary
step forward in developing a truly global framework for understanding
long-term economic development, one that breaks with Eurocentric
conceptions of development and one that places more emphasis on
comparisons within and across the former ‘periphery’.
Paper Submission
Full papers, written in English, must be submitted for consideration for
the meeting. The cover page should include: the title of the paper,
institutional affiliation, including address, phone and email of each
author, and an abstract with the appropriate JEL classification.
Each author can submit and present at most one paper.
Full papers, in PDF format, should be sent to: Macarena Rodríguez Tobler:
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Important Dates
Deadline for paper submission: December 15, 2014
Notification of organizers decision: January 15, 2015
Note
The organization has funds to partially finance travel expenses of those
participants not able to obtain full funding from their own sources.
Further information
Should you have any questions please contact: Esta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo. or
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For more information see also www.ridge.uy.
