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Arrested Development? Puerto Rico in an American Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2019

John Devereux
John Devereux*
Affiliation:
John Devereux is Professor, Department of Economics, Queens College, CUNY, Flushing, New York, New York, 11367-1597. E-mail: John.devereux@qc.cuny.edu.
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Abstract

Puerto Rico became an American colony in 1898, achieving self-rule after the Great Depression. The standard view is that Puerto Rican living standards stagnated before the policy changes of the New Deal and it has lost ground on the mainland since the early 1970s. I show these claims are mistaken. Using a new GDP index for 1900 to 1940, I show that income per capita grew at impressive rates during direct American rule and Puerto Rico escaped the worst ravages of the Great Depression. In addition, I find the recent growth slowdown is partly a statistical artifact.

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 79 , Issue 3 , September 2019 , pp. 708 - 735
Copyright
© The Economic History Association 2019 

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Footnotes

I am especially grateful to the editor, William Collins, and to three anonymous referees for their assistance which greatly improved the paper. I thank Victor Bulmer Thomas, Frank Barry, Kris James Mitchener, Leandro Prados de la Escosura, and participants at the ASCE session at the American Economic Association meetings and a seminar at Carlos II Madrid for their suggestions. I also thank Jim Schmitz and Brian Marein for helpful comments and for sharing data.

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