Economic Growth and Change in Bourbon Mexico

Although the 18th century in Mexico has been described as the ""golden age"", the century must have seemed far from gilded to many of its inhabitants. For years, scholars have attempted to resolve the conjunctions of economic growth and relatively enlightened public policy with widespread poverty. In this work, Richard Garner and Spiro Stefanou aim to solve the puzzle and demonstrate why growth did not lead to economic development. Mexico's material wealth, such as its precious metals, was not used to broaden or diversify its economic activities, but rather to underwrite various imperial ventures. Though its population grew by several million and its economy by several tens of millions of pesos, people there were only marginally better off by the end of the century than they were at the beginning. By assembling numerical series from as many different sectors of the economy as possible, Garner and Stefanou have been able to analyse trends and calculate and compare growth rates. Separate chapters deal with agriculture, mining, manufacturing, commerce and public policy. The most impressive upward trends relate not to what the economy produced, but to how much the royal treasury collected as taxes and monopolies and to how much bullion the colonial government exported to Spain, Europe and other colonies. This book offers new perspectives on the contiuing debate about the nature of colonialism and economic development.