1. INTRODUCTION

Living standards in pre-independent Spanish America have recently attracted more scholarly interest than ever before. Since 2009, a growing literature dealing with this topic has been made available in different formats — contributions to seminars and conferences, working papers, journal articles and book chapters — to the international academic community of economic historians (Dobado-González and García-Montero Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2009, 2010, 2014; Dobado-González Reference Dobado-González2010; Dobado and Marrero Reference Dobado-González and Marrero2011; Allen et al. Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2011, Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012; Arroyo-Abad et al. Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2011, Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012; Arroyo-Abad Reference Arroyo-Abad2014; Challú and Gómez-Galvarriato Reference Challú and Gómez-Galvarriato2014). These studies share some methodological features: a long-run perspective, an approach which is basically quantitative and international comparativenessFootnote ¹ . Sources, which are rather scarce and so far mainly secondary, do not differ substantially. However, at the same time, differences between the methods may not be insignificant. Therefore, not surprisingly, the results obtained and their implications for the assessment of Spanish American economic history over the last five centuries are also dissimilar in some non-trivial respects. In some cases, new alternative explanatory hypotheses for the results are proposed; in others, the authors’ aim is essentially empirical, although some speculative inferences are suggested.

Several reasons explain why this «new generation» of work on the material conditions of life prevailing in pre-independent Spanish America has come into existence and, hopefully, will be continued by further and much-needed research. First, the intellectually ambitious and fruitful research conducted by some scholars and research groups has returned real wages to a central place in economic history. In particular, methodological contributions made by Robert C. Allen — consumption baskets and welfare ratios — and Jan Luiten van Zanden — a «second generation» of consumer price indices — have played an important role in the revival of a subject that has had, if discontinuously, a noteworthy presence in economic history since the 19^th century. As for Spanish America, recent research has been facilitated by the existence of a previous specialised bibliographyFootnote ² and free access to global data bases on prices and wagesFootnote ³ . In the second place, the challenge posed to conventional wisdom by the debate on the timing and causes of the Great Divergence, initiated by Pomeranz (Reference Pomeranz2000), has also favoured the widening of the geographical scope in the study of pre-industrial living standards to include some non-European countries (China, India and Japan) (Allen et al. Reference Allen, Bengtsson and Dribe2005; Bassino and Ma Reference Bassino and Ma2006; Broadberry and Gupta Reference Broadberry and Gupta2006; Allen et al. Reference Allen, Bassino, MA, Moll-Murata and van Zanden2011a; Bassino et al. Reference Bassino, Broadberry, Fukao, Gupta and Takashima2011).

Curiously enough, until 2009 Spanish America was absent from the expanding picture that this new scholarship was drawing. This was extremely surprising and especially so in the light of the considerable influence exerted on economists and economic historians by the «neo-institutional school» as it takes Spanish America as its main case study of their hypotheses and propositions (Engerman and Sokoloff Reference Engerman and Sokoloff1994, Reference Engerman and Sokoloff2002, Reference Engerman and Sokoloff2005, Reference Engerman and Sokoloff2012; Acemoglu et al. Reference Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson2002). From an international comparative approach, living standards of the commoners may be the appropriate test of the allegedly «extractive» and «unequal» character of the institutions that would epitomise the Spanish colonial legacy in America. In fact, inequality, despite some reduction in the last years (Lustig et al. Reference Lustig, López-Calva and Ortiz-Juarez2013), is one of the main characteristics of contemporary Spanish American societies. Inequality has been defined in terms of the real wages of unskilled workers (the «Williamson Index») and studied, for the post-independence period, by Williamson (Reference Williamson1999, Reference Williamson2002) and Prados de la Escosura (Reference Prados de la Escosura2007). The «reversal of fortune» (Acemoglu et al. Reference Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson2002) might also be tested through the comparison between pre-Columbian and post-Columbian living standards.

Since 2009, the sharing of a «common language» among scholars from different cultural backgrounds and fields of expertise has made possible a potentially fruitful scholarly dialogue between alternative views. This dialogue, not without some simplification, may be described through the dichotomy «optimism»-«pessimism», a long-established one in our profession. The «optimistic» view of the living conditions of Spanish Americans before independence finds that they were comparable to those prevailing in Europe — including north-western Europe — and higher than in Asia. In contrast, the «pessimists» claim that living conditions were much poorer, particularly if compared with British North America and north-western Europe. «Optimism» is at odds with neo-institutionalism, as relatively good living conditions do not fit the notions of «extractive» institutions (Acemoglu et al. Reference Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson2002) and extreme inequality (Engerman and Sokoloff Reference Engerman and Sokoloff2005). On the contrary, «pessimism» is fully consistent with neo-institutionalism. Both «pessimistic» and «optimistic» views of living standards during the Early Modern Era will be discussed herein. My view, shared with Héctor García-Montero, is the pioneer among post-2009 «optimists».

Spanish America was a leading character in the process of globalisation of the Early Modern Era. Some peculiar institutions (encomienda, mita and repartimiento) of mixed origin (aboriginal and Spanish) were initially influential at allocating coerced labour (which was, more often than not, also paid labour) for the production of some of the goods that started to circulate all over the world (i.e. silver). Slavery was not unknown in pre-Columbian America. However, after 1492 it reached unprecedented importance in some territories of the Caribbean Basin that were increasingly integrated in the emerging global economy through the supply of «new goods» such as sugar. However, the «plantation model» established in some British and French colonies in America never reached a similar omnipresence in the territories of the Hispanic Monarchy (see Klein Reference Klein2007). Slavery always coexisted with other productive forms of using labour (small- and middle-sized farms, free workers of different types, etc.) (see Johnson Reference Johnson1997; Monteiro Reference Monteiro2006). In any case, regarding labour, it has generally been overlooked that the main institutional innovation in Spanish America was the early creation of a previously non-existent free market for this factor of production: an institution «of private property» in the terminology of Acemoglu et al. (Reference Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson2002). Extractive institutions have attracted most scholarly attention and have often been mistakenly considered the ultimate Spanish «colonial legacy». However, free labour spread across Spanish America soon after the conquest (Sánchez Albornoz Reference Sánchez Albornoz2006). Therefore, contrary to conventional wisdom, it should probably be considered the main institutional Spanish legacy. Free labour became increasingly important in fields, towns and mines and was probably dominant in the whole economy by 1800 as a result of the substitution of bondage by wages. Studying wages and living standards proves instrumental for assessing the economy of viceregal America and its influence on the developments of the post-independence period.

Although further research is very much needed, available evidence suggests that: (a) Spanish America, rather than Western Europe (e.g. the Netherlands, United Kingdom, etc.) might have been the place where some of the new consumption patterns appeared for the first time: the so-called «consumer revolution» of the Early Modern Era (sugar, tobacco, cocoa, oriental manufactures, etc.); and (b) these goods were progressively accessible to wider sections of the population, at least in some territories such as New Spain (Dobado-González Reference Dobado-González2014)Footnote ⁴ . The early diffusion throughout Spanish America of goods unknown or uncommon in Europe was made possible by the combined effects of the Columbus Exchange (e.g. sugar) and the Manila Galleon (e.g. Asian textiles). The study of real wages is important for understanding the «consumer revolution» as pointed out by Allen (Reference Allen2001). Thus, conversely, any study of living standards in this part of the world needs to take into account — which is not always the case — that some «exotic» items (i.e. sugar, cocoa and tobacco) were frequently consumed by increasing segments of the population from the beginning of the Early Modern Era. Moreover, other particularities of the consumption patterns in Spanish America deserve consideration: in contrast to other parts of the world, a surprising ease of access, even if unevenly distributed spatially, to animal proteins in everyday diets during most of the post-Columbian period (see Section 3).

An important contribution to the study of living standards has been made from a distinct, albeit to a large extent complementary, discipline: anthropometric history. The study of anthropometric measures, mainly heights, as a proxy for net nutritional status or biological well-being has become one of the most popular fields in social sciences during the last decades. The efforts made by two generations of anthropometric historians have permitted the expansion of the knowledge frontier in topics such as the welfare of human populations, with which economic history has been dealing since its constitution as an independent field of research (Komlos and Baten Reference Komlos and Baten2004; Steckel 2009). Although with some delay, the anthropometric history of Spanish America has finally started to offer new evidence and insights into the still poorly known evolution of human welfare in this part of the world (Baten and Carson 2010). However, in sharp contrast with Europe and the United States, only the studies of Argentina conducted by Salvatore (Reference Salvatore1998) and Salvatore and Baten (Reference Salvatore and Baten1998), starting their analysis from the late pre-independence period, had been published before 2009Footnote ⁵ .

Thus, studying living conditions in Spanish America during the Early Modern Era is justified by reasons that are neither scarce nor minor. The article is organised as follows. This introduction is followed by the second section that presents what may be described as the «optimistic» and «pessimistic» views on the subject under consideration. In the third section, a methodological discussion is presented. The paper concludes with some final remarks.

2. «Optimism» Vs. «Pessimism»

The first optimistic example of the «new generation» of research on the material conditions of life of pre-independent Spanish Americans is that of Dobado-González and García-Montero (Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2009)Footnote ⁶ . The paper was presented at the conference A Comparative Approach to Inequality and Development: Latin America and Europe, organised by Luís Bértola, Leandro Prados de la Escosura and Jeffrey Williamson in MadridFootnote ⁷ . In their attempt to put Spanish America on the emerging map of living standards throughout the pre-industrial world, Dobado-González and García-Montero (Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2009) estimated power purchasing parities of the daily wages of skilled and unskilled workers in terms of the cheapest grain and meat in the early 19^th century for a number of countries in the Americas and EurasiaFootnote ⁸ . In addition, a comparison of grain and meat wages of unskilled workers over the 18^th and early 19^th centuries between Bogota, London, Mexico Milan and Potosi was presented.

Regarding real wages, Dobado-González and García-Montero (Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2009) departed from the methodology that has become the standard for this type of studies: specifying a representative basket of consumer goods (Allen Reference Allen2001, Reference Allen2005; van Zanden Reference van Zanden2005) and estimating welfare ratios (Allen et al. Reference Allen, Bassino, MA, Moll-Murata and van Zanden2011a, Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2011b, Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012). Further discussion of methodological issues is provided later in this article. For the moment, I will simply mention the main reasons why Dobado-González and García-Montero (Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2009) made their choice: (a) paucity of data on prices of the goods included in the usual baskets for pre-independence Spanish America and (b) the attempt to widen the geographical scope of the comparison as much as possible.

The paper also showed and analysed heights of adult males from northern and south-eastern Bourbon Mexico — including parts of today’s south-western states of the United States — and Maracaibo (Venezuela). It included an exploration of inequality from a different perspective to that adopted by Williamson (Reference Williamson2009), although influenced by his previous work (Williamson Reference Williamson1999). Thus, two ratios were calculated: (1) GDP per capita to grain wages for the early 19^th century, an adaptation of the Williamson inequality index to available data and (2) a more speculative index of inequality computed as the ratio of GDP per capita to heights.

This double approach to the study of living standards offered a basically «optimistic» viewFootnote ⁹ . In fact, grain and meat wages in the early 19^th century in Bogota, Guadalajara, «hot» and «cold» regions of New Spain, Mexico City, Potosí and San Luis Potosi compared fairly well with or surpassed those of Eurasia. Moreover, throughout most of the 18^th and early 19^th centuries, grain wages in Bogota, Mexico City and Potosi were at a similar level to or above those in London and southern England and consistently higher than in Italy. It was even more surprising to observe that meat wages — a superior good in the late pre-industrial world — in Bogota, Guadalajara, Mexico City and Puebla were always higher than in the two locations taken as representative of the band of variation in Europe (see Figure 1).

FIGURE 1 MEAT WAGES OF UNSKILLED WORKERS CIRCA 1803.

Note: al: agricultural labourer; alhr: agricultural labourer «hot regions»; alcr: agricultural labourer «cold regions». Source: Dobado-González and García-Montero (Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2009).

Heights of Spanish American adult males showed significant regional differences. However, the sample, covering cohorts born from the 1730s to the 1770s, made it clear that heights were not shorter than in many European regions, except for south-eastern New Spain where they were clearly in the low range of the international standards of the time (Asia excluded). A racial — social? — gap did indeed exist but it was neither larger than in other societies nor increasing over the decades under consideration. Furthermore, inequality in Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico, measured by the «adapted-to-data-availability» Williamson index, was among the lowest in a sample of countries that included several western countries (see Figure 2). Certainly, these findings might be in need of revision if a further expansion of the sample so suggested. In any case, as far as inequality is concerned, the conclusions presented in Dobado-González and García-Montero (Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2009) were in tune with claims by Coatsworth (Reference Coatsworth2008) and Williamson (Reference Williamson2009)Footnote ¹⁰ .

FIGURE 2 WILLIAMSON’S INDEX OF INEQUALITY, EARLY 19^TH CENTURY

Source: Dobado-González and García-Montero (Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2009).

Thus, the «optimistic» view proposed by Dobado-González and García-Montero is based on: (a) the comparison with other parts of the world and (b) the contrast between our empirical findings and the somber inferences that may be derived with respect to the material conditions of life among labourers in pre-independence Spanish America (relatively low real wages, short heights and high inequality) from the neo-institutionalist hypothesis. Dobado-González and García-Montero (Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2010) basically showed the same results regarding economic (real wages) and biological (heights) living standards and inequality. A new hypothesis was then proposed: in the light of the results obtained, it seemed reasonable to wonder whether the GDP per capita estimates by Coatsworth (Reference Coatsworth2008) and Maddison (Reference Maddison2009) should be revised upwardsFootnote ¹¹ .

In 2010, two sessions of the Second Latin American Economic History Congress, held in Mexico City, reflected the increasing interest of economic historians from many countries in living standards and inequality in Spanish America. The session, «Origins and Trends of Inequality in Latin America» was coordinated by Bértola and Linda Twrdek, while Daniel Santilli, Inés Moraes and Julio Djenderedjian were the convenors of the session, «Prices, Wages, Inequality and Living Standards in Latin America, 1700-1850». Rafael Dobado-González and Héctor García-Montero contributed to the two above-mentioned sessions. Tommy Murphy also made a contribution to one session of the II CLADHE Congress in which the initial research on living standards in the Americas conducted by Robert Allen, himself and Eric Schneider was announced. The joint work of these three authors appeared as a working paper of the IGIER in 2011 (Allen et al. Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2011b) with the title «The Colonial Origins of the Divergence in the Americas: A Labor Market Approach»Footnote ¹² . From the methodology used, an estimation of welfare ratios based on a bare-bones subsistence basket of goods from 1525-1549 to 1800-1824 (see Table 1), a «pessimistic» view of Spanish American living standards is derived. In the abstract they claimed that «the Latin American colonies [were] among the least developed countries at a similar level to Southern European and Asian countries» (Allen et al. Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2011b). The «colonies» considered in their sample are Potosi, Bogota and rural and urban Mexico.

Allen et al. Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2011b also offer an explanation for the «colonial origins of divergence in the Americas» based on the functioning of the labour markets across the continent. While in north-eastern America high wages reflected conditions in London, low wages in Spanish America similarly responded to those — much worse for labourers — prevailing in Madrid. This disparity was reinforced by the demography of the native population. Thus, labour mobility through inter-continental migration and differential demographic patterns play an important role in the explanation of the early Great Divergence within the Americas proposed by Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2011b).

Interesting as it is, this «labour-market approach» raises some empirical doubts. The notion of a certain degree of integration of labour markets between London and north-eastern America seems plausible and may find some empirical support. This is far from being the case regarding the Hispanic Monarchy. The progress, if any, of labour-market integration within Spain in the Early Modern Era was at best limited. Migration within the territories that comprise Hispanic America (e.g. Peru, New Spain, etc.) was more common than generally thought (Robinson Reference Robinson1990). Some degree of intra-territorial labour integration may be assumed, for example, across some parts of New Spain or the Andes. However, there is no evidence of significant migration across territories and hence of inter-territorial labour-market integration. If compared with the British colonies in North America, geography and cultural diversity (language included) were powerful obstacles to long-distance, inter-territorial migration within Spanish America. As for integration across the Atlantic, some data are interesting: in 1580-1640, the ratio of Spanish migrants to Spanish America to the population of New Spain and Peru in 1600 equals that of British migrants to the North American colonies (5 per cent); the same ratios for 1640-1760 and 1700 are, respectively, 6 and 42 per centFootnote ¹³ . In other words, contrary to what happened in the colonies of British North America, the number of Spanish migrants was simply not significant enough to permit some integration of labour markets between Spain and Spanish America. What is more, Spanish migrants were rarely or never labourers competing in the unskilled labour market. By and large, Spaniards worked as civil servants, clergymen, members of entrepreneurial families, professionals and skilled artisans. Therefore, it is very unlikely that wages in those highly skilled segments of the Spanish American fragmented labour market in which Spaniards were over-represented, responded to conditions ruling over Spanish labourers living in, say, inner Castile, thousands of miles away from Mexico City or Lima and unable to afford the expansive trip to Spain, not to mention Peru (nothing similar to the indentured servitude ever existed in the Hispanic world). Moreover, unskilled urban labour was very often supplied by an ethnic group peculiar to the Spanish America society and with an increasing presence over the centuries after the Conquest: mestizos. In New Spain, the most populated viceroyalty, mestizos represented nearly a quarter of total population and a significantly higher percentage of urban dwellers by the late 18^th century (Sánchez Santiró Reference Sánchez Santiró2007).

Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2011b) published an article in The Journal of Economic History in 2012. While this paper recognises the originality of its attempt to find an explanation for the differences in wages between British North America and pre-independent Spanish America, it is most probably wrong as all the available evidence runs against its main conclusion: «two streams of migrations in the colonial period — one emanating from North-Western Europe at high wages and the other from Iberia at lower wages — created an early difference in income levels in British and Spanish America» (Allen et al. Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012, p. 889). Some difference in living standards may be observed, although it was not always very significant or even existent at all (see Figure 1 and Table 5). In any case, the magnitude of this difference crucially depends on the measure of real wages used. Moreover, even if the causal relationship hypothesised by Allen and his co-authors and even if their estimates are accepted (see Table 2) some empirical problems arise: (a) other Europeans, including those richer than the Spaniards, were also clearly poorer than some 18^th-century Spanish Americans; (b) Londoners were richer than some North Americans from 1650 to 1750, although not afterwards; (c) some north-western Europeans were richer than some British North Americans until 1750 and (d) differences among British North Americans were consistently not insignificant either. Differences in living standards within Spain and Spanish America and between Spanish America and Spain are also apparent: in 1750-1799, welfare ratios in Valencia were clearly above Madrid (33 per cent); some welfare ratios in Spanish America were higher than others (Mexico-urban vs. Mexico-rural) and all welfare ratios were higher in Spanish America than in Spain. Therefore, one would expect a more detailed explanation of the intra-Spanish, intra-Spanish American, and inter-Spanish and Spanish American wage differentials in terms of the «labour-market approach» proposed by Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012). Might it be that the North American exceptionalism explains differences with the rest of the world of which Spanish America would be a particular case and not the most appropriate term of comparison?

Thus, I disagree with the contention that «these initial wage differences led to the Great Divergence in the Americas» (Allen et al. Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012). To explain a process as complex as this Great Divergence, a broader set of factors deserves an appropriate consideration: geography (Gallup et al. Reference Gallup, Gaviría and Lora2003; Dobado-González Reference Dobado-González2009), the «pre-Columbian legacy» (Dobado-González Reference Dobado-González2009), the economic consequences of independence (Prados de la Escosura Reference Prados de la Escosura2006), the «commodity lottery» (Bulmer-Thomas Reference Bulmer-Thomas1994), late 19^th-century developments and even others in the 20^th century (Prados de la Escosura Reference Prados de la Escosura2007).

In 2011, the working paper «Between Conquest and Independence: Real Wages and Demographic Change in Spanish America, 1530-1820», co-authored by Leticia Arroyo-Abad, Elwyn Davies and Jan Luiten van Zanden, was published. It appeared in Explorations in Economic History (hereinafter Arroyo-Abad et al. Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012)Footnote ¹⁴ . The authors first «confirm the fact that living in colonial Latin America was costly». This result coincides with that of Allen et al.: «The cost of living indexes immediately highlight the inflationary effect of the silver economy» (Allen et al. Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012, p. 874). Plausible as it sounds, this shared claim is not necessarily true regarding the main items of the consumption basket of the commoners during the 18^th and early 19^th centuries. Corn was consistently cheaper in Bogota than wheat in London, southern England and Milan. It was more often than not less expensive in Mexico than in these European locations. However, it was certainly more expensive in Potosi than elsewhere, but only until the 1790sFootnote ¹⁵ . As for meat, Spanish America, except sometimes Potosi, was by and large more favourable to consumers than Western Europe. Sugar was especially cheap in some parts of Spanish America, albeit not in Potosi and the Southern Cone. Thus, results crucially depend on the methodology followed. Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012) basically replicate Allen’s methodology, although they introduce some changes (see Table 3).

Although not much discussion of these changes is offered, they recognise the fact that Spanish Americans could consume a comparatively very high amount of animal proteins, as pointed out by Dobado-González and García-Montero (Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2009, 2010). This sole change in the basket, along with the widening of the sample — Peru, Argentina and Chile are added — explains why their results are not far from those previously found by Dobado-González and García-Montero (Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2009, 2010) and also depicts a much more «optimistic» picture of living standards (see Table 4).

Therefore, in Argentina, Bolivia and Mexico, and to a lesser extent in Chile, real wages were «relatively high, and compared favorably with real wages of large parts of Western Europe» (Arroyo-Abad et al. Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012, p. 160). In other parts (Peru and Colombia), real wages «were not particularly high before the 1720s» but exceeded the subsistence level afterwards. Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012) rely on anthropometric data for additional evidence in support of their claims: «Our results are by and large consistent with biological standards of living studies» (Arroyo-Abad et al. Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012, p. 150). However, they only mention the studies of heights of a few authors — not including those of Dobado-González and García-Montero (Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2009, 2010) — and do not present their own data. Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012) share a hypothetical proposition made by Dobado-González and García-Montero (Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2010). They also suggest that Maddison’s estimates of GDP per capita might need to be revised upwards: «the starting level at the eve of the 19th century may have been higher than assumed so far» (Arroyo-Abad et al. Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012, p. 160).

Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012) find that real wages in Spanish America are explained mainly by general demographic trends and, in the case of the mining centres, by the booms and busts of production. The scarcity of labour, which «was common throughout the Spanish empire in the Americas», was the most influential circumstance on the functioning of labour markets, even on non-market institutions, such as mita and encomienda, and their results show that living conditions are clearly higher than those estimated by Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012). I think that the rather «optimistic» view of real wages and the demographic explanation suggested by Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012) is more consistent with the available quantitative evidence than the «pessimistic» one and the labour-market approach that Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012) propose.

A recent research by Challú and Gómez-Galvarriato (Reference Challú and Gómez-Galvarriato2014) on living standards in Mexico City from the 1750s to the 1910s seems to be closer to «optimism» than «pessimism»Footnote ¹⁶ . On the one hand, it is true that living conditions deteriorated during the late part of the 18^th century. However, a similar trend is observed not just in Mexico City but in other places as well (see Tables 2 and 4). Except perhaps in North America (least disfavoured ethnic sectors excluded), the second half of the 18^th century and the first decades of the 19^th century were not favourable for commoners in terms either of traditional consumption items or inequality in many parts of the world. Challú (Reference Challú2010) offers a «pessimistic» view of the evolution of heights that, as discussed below, is not found in all available data sets and was exclusive of New Spain. On the other hand, the level of real wages in Mexico City, estimated using Allen’s bare-bones basket, was still lower in 1900-1913 than in 1758-1774, while in 1875-1899 it was slightly higher than in 1775-1779. In addition, between 1760 and 1810 — when the Insurgencia started — welfare ratios in Mexico City were declining but were comparable to those — also evolving downwards — in London and, especially, Amsterdam and clearly higher than in Beijing, except in some especially adverse agricultural conjunctures (i.e. the mid-1780s and the early-1810s).

In Dobado-González and García-Montero (Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2014), the methodology used is again the estimation of purchasing powers of daily wages, although a new good — sugar, a luxury product — is included. By doing so, we try to improve the reliability of our deflators to capture the economic welfare of Spanish American commoners, as the consumption of sugar was relatively widespread in some territories (i.e. New Spain and Bogota). Another advantage of including sugar is that the range of income elasticities of the three deflators used (grain, meat and sugar) is expanded. These three goods represented the lion’s share of the consumption expenditure in most Spanish America territories. In addition, we introduce into the debate on living standards the results offered by Hersh and Voth (Reference Hersh and Voth2011): a higher than usually recognised increase in welfare as a consequence of the new goods, sugar included, accessible to Europeans after 1492 (see Table 4).

Dobado-González and García-Montero (Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2014) enlarge the comparison on heights as well and, complementing the picture that emerges from our measures of real wages, reinforces our conditional «optimism». Differences in both economic and physical welfare within Spanish America, as pointed out by Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012), are significant (i.e. southern New Spain heights) (see Table 5).

The «pessimism»/«optimism» dichotomy may also be valid to describe the main conclusions of the anthropometric studies on pre-independence Spanish America (in fact, New Spain) published since 2009. In contrast with Dobado-González and García-Montero (Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2009, Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2010, Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2014), Challú (Reference Challú2009, Reference Challú2010) and Grajales-Porras and López-Alonso (Reference Grajales-Porras and López-Alonso2011) are rather «pessimistic».

3. METHODOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES

As previously mentioned, the divide between «optimists» and «pessimists» is mainly owing to methodological differences, although not always: for example, Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012) vs. Challú and Gómez-Galvarriato (Reference Challú and Gómez-Galvarriato2014) regarding Mexico City real wages. These differences will be discussed in this section. Several arguments will be presented to justify the departure from the methodology initiated by Allen (Reference Allen2001) to study real wages in the past.

Allen’s methodology basically consists of (1) design subsistence consumption baskets (including both food and non-food items)Footnote ¹⁷ ; (2) calculate its annual cost — increased by 5 per cent in order to capture housing — in grams of silver for a family (one man, one woman and two children) at the subsistence levelFootnote ¹⁸ ; (3) determine the yearly nominal wage (250 working days) of a full-time male unskilled labourer; and (4) estimate welfare ratios as the division between these earnings and the cost of the family subsistence basket. If the ratio’s value is one, it means that the family consumption is identical to the subsistence basket. By construction, higher ratios imply better living conditions. This approach has improved previous attempts to estimate and interpret real wages.

However, for general and particular reasons, we do not consider the most appropriate approach for the case of Early Modern Hispanic America. This is why we have followed the rather traditional procedure of calculating the purchasing power of daily nominal wages in terms of three types of goods (grain, meat and sugar), complementing the results with those rendered by the research on biological living standards through the estimation of male average heights. I am conscious of the limitations of the Dobado-García approach. Nonetheless, it is my contention that it offers a sounder comparative perspective of the level and dynamics of both economic and physical welfare of Spanish American commoners during the Bourbon period. This is partially owing to our still unsatisfactory — despite the improvements reached over the last decade — knowledge of the history of prices in this part of the world. Therefore, gains in the time and space coverage have a cost of opportunity in terms of precision.

Dobado-García’s critique of Allen’s methodology, in particular regarding Early Modern Hispanic America, is based on the following arguments: uniformity of consumption patterns across the world; stability of consumptions patterns over the Early Modern Era; assumptions on factors that influence families’ income and expenditure; demanding data requirements; adaptation to Spanish America consumption peculiarities. They are assessed, sometimes jointly, in the rest of this section.

As opposed to Allen’s methodology, that of Dobado-García does not need any assumption to start with. Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012) rely on an arguable premise: the identity of consumption patterns across the world (excluding southern England and the Low Countries) and, by inference, within Spanish America (Allen et al. Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012, pp. 872-873). To a certain extent, it is true that the consumption patterns of commoners in pre-industrial economies shared some characteristics as a result of the worldwide low levels of income. Nonetheless, abundant evidence shows that differences also existed. Inevitably, they are underestimated if a basic universal, basket of consumption is designed in isolation. Geography, ethnicity, economic conditions and cultural practices differed across Hispanic America. This diversity could not but influence consumer decisions. Observed contrasts regarding the nutritional traditions and the availability of staple food between Mesoamerica (maize, squash, bean and pulque) and the Andes (potato, quinoa, charqui and coca leaves), or between the Southern Cone (yerba mate, wheat and beef) and the Caribbean (rice, bean and dried beef), were not minor. Market integration, economic growth and cultural exchange within the pluri-continental Hispanic Monarchy may have favoured some convergence of consumption patterns. However, diversity probably remained higher than in other more homogeneous, parts of the world in terms of geography and culture (Europe and East Asia). For obvious geographical reasons, the need for intake of calories and protection from the climate (clothing, fuel, etc.) varied widely across Hispanic American territories (e.g. Potosi vs. Mexico City). This shortcoming inherent to the universal basket turns out to be more apparent when North America and Europe (Boston, Philadelphia, London, Leipzig, etc.) are included in the comparison. This circumstance is considered by Allen (Reference Allen2001). In Allen et al. Reference Allen, Bassino, MA, Moll-Murata and van Zanden2011a fuel consumption contributes to the distinction between the «bare-bones» (three million BTUs) and the «respectable» (five million BTUs) baskets in Europe and north China. However, it does not play any role in the subsistence baskets designed either for Shouzou/Canton and Beijing or for northern Europe and Milan. Moreover, no differences in consumption patterns across those locations, other than using different carbohydrates as sources of the same amount of calories (the cheapest ones being rice for Shouzou/Canton, sorghum for Beijing, wheat for north-western Europe and polenta for Milan) may be observed in the respective subsistence baskets.

Llopis et al. (Reference Llopis, García-Montero Hiernaux, García-Montero Montero, Gónzalez Mariscal and Hernández García-Montero2009) assign different shares to some food (bread, meat, beans, fish and wine) and non-food items (fuel and lighting and housing) in their comparison of consumer price indices (CPIs) between three Spanish towns (Madrid, Palencia and Seville) in the 18^th century. In early 20^th-century Spain, significant differences in diets still existed not only between regions but also within regions or even provinces, especially in terms of the consumption of some vegetables and, in particular, animal proteins (Nicolau and Pujol Reference Nicolau and Pujol2006). Thus, in geographically heterogeneous countries, such as Spain — not to mention others in Spanish AmericaFootnote ¹⁹ — inter-regional and intra-regional differences in nutrition were complemented with intra-provincial differencesFootnote ²⁰ .

As mentioned above, Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012) rightly distinguish between three baskets in order to capture differences in consumption between Europe and Spanish America and within Spanish America (see Table 3). This attempt to adapt the universal basket to the specific conditions prevailing in different territories simply alters some food items. Interestingly, no large changes in the baskets — simply the quantities of meat and beans — are needed to modify upwards the results obtained by Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012) and therefore to depict a more «optimistic» picture of living standards of Spanish Americans.

Hispanic America could hardly have been left unaffected by the Columbus Exchange. The inter- and intra-continental diffusion of species (wheat, cattle, sugar, cacao, etc.) that widened the nutritional basis of human populations in the Americas and elsewhere in the world, progressed unevenly over time and space. However, it was precisely in the American territories of the Hispanic Monarchy where diets probably experienced an earlier and deeper change across the whole social spectrum over the Early Modern Era. Therefore, keeping the consumption basket constant over the centuries might be misleading as it overlooks the changes experienced by humans after 1492, and not only in the New WorldFootnote ²¹ . Allen himself recognises that his first CPI «was very much a premodern basket», as the «European colonization of America and the Indies expanded the consumption of some goods (e.g., sugar) and introduced others (e.g., tobacco, potatoes, tea, and coffee)» (Allen Reference Allen2001, p. 420). By the end of the 18^th century these goods «were consumed by working people» (Allen Reference Allen2001; Allen et al. Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012).

The extent of the changes in diets — and even the economy and society — in post-Columbian America is revealed, among other food items, by sugarcane and cacao, not to mention wheat or beef. Sugarcane was previously unknown. Native to the Amazon region, cacao was consumed as a drink by Mesoamerican elites and probably also by commoners in pre-Hispanic times (Kiple Reference Kiple2007)Footnote ²² . After 1492, cocoa and sugar became complementary goods that were widely consumed in New Spain (Menegus and Tortolero Reference Menegus and Tortolero1999). According to von Humboldt (Reference von Humboldt1822/1991), neither sugar nor cocoa were consumed exclusively by the rich. Rather the contrary appears to be true: «el uso del chocolate en toda América en frecuentísimo, el más moderado lo toma dos veces, por la mañana y a las tres de la tarde; muchos lo toman tres veces; no pocos cuatro»Footnote ²³ . Imports from Guayaquil made possible the consumption of «cheap» cocoa by the «poor» in 18^th-century New Spain (Miño Reference Miño2009). By the end of the pre-independent period Caracas and Guayaquil had been producing and exporting significant quantities of cocoa since at least the 17^th century. Exports from Guayaquil reached most ports in the Pacific — from New Spain to Chile — and even sometimes Montevideo (Contreras Reference Contreras1990). Sugarcane cultivation had spread across a number of territories (New Spain, Cuba, Peru, etc.). British colonies in North America do not seem to be very different in this respectFootnote ²⁴ . Even in Chile, sugar was present with a share of 70 per cent in the index of imported products elaborated by Larraín (Reference Larraín1992). It also appears among the selected products considered by Johnson (Reference Johnson1992) in his study of prices and wages in late Bourbon Buenos AiresFootnote ²⁵ . In Arequipa, both Spanish and mestizas families consumed sugar on a regular basis, according to Brown (Reference Brown1992)Footnote ²⁶ .

Indeed, as claimed by Allen (Reference Allen2001), including sugar in the basket «may not affect the overall conclusions» (Allen Reference Allen2001, p. 420). However, the additional exclusion of cocoa, tobacco, alcohol and other items that, in accordance with a variety of sources, became familiar to many Hispanic Americans sooner or later after the start of the Columbus Exchange, distorts the reality of their everyday consumption. Thus, the practical reason argued by Allen (Reference Allen2001) is more convincing for justifying their exclusion from the representative consumption basket, although that procedure has a non-negligible impact on the results in terms of welfare ratiosFootnote ²⁷ .

There is another difficulty with the use of fixed baskets over a three-century-long period, especially if significant changes in relative prices — for example, meat in terms of grain, etc. — occur such as during the Early Modern Era. Substitution effects on consumption patterns, that may be large and unevenly distributed across time and space, cannot be captured through fixed baskets of goods. For example, in London, from c. 1660 to 1810, sugar cheapened substantially with respect to wheat, while the price of beef in terms of wheat increased, albeit more moderately; in Bogota, from the mid-18^th century to the early 19^th century the price ratio meat/grain grew faster than in Mexico City. Income effects on consumer choices, that were presumably not negligible either — that is, 18^th-century England and, to a lesser extent, New Spain — are also opaque to very long-term fixed baskets.

Thus, especially in some parts of Spanish America — mainly, New Spain and Lower and Upper Peru, contemporary Peru and Bolivia, respectively — the very notion of an immutable consumption basket during the whole viceregal period conflicts with substantial evidence. In other parts, fixed shares of food items over a sufficient number of decades can overlook important changes in the diet.

Wages would also be sensitive to changes intended to reflect cross-country, cross-regional and cross-sectoral variations of two arguable assumptions on which Allen’s methodology is based: the average family size is fixed without further elaboration at four members (husband, wife and two children of undetermined age), while the standard number of yearly working days is established at 250. As we will see, these aspects are especially problematic over a three-century period and across all parts of the world.

A universal estimate of yearly working days is not consistent with the variety of labour practices existing in different economic sectors (urban, rural and mines) and their likely long-term changes. Moreover, the increasing substitution of free for coerced labour probably influenced the number of days worked per year in Spanish America. The conclusions reached by Voth (Reference Voth2000, Reference Voth2001) support the expansion of both the annual working hours and days in England from 1750 to 1830, and cast some doubt on the general validity of Allen’s assumption regarding the comparison between 18^th-century London and 17^th-century Potosi or 16^th-century rural New SpainFootnote ²⁸ . More generally, it is reasonable to expect that the number of working days, and/or daily hours, changed upwards in response to increases in prices, especially if they were very intense — that is, 16^th-century Valencia and 18^th-century Mexico City (Allen et al. Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012; Arroyo-Abad et al. Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012).

Something similar may be claimed in relation to the assumption about family size. It seems reasonable to expect that the number of family members changed in response to economic conditions and evolved over its life cycleFootnote ²⁹ . Ethnicity also influenced family sizeFootnote ³⁰ . In addition, the contribution by women and children to family subsistence was common and, more importantly, unevenly distributed over time and across space. The changeable contribution of self-production to family consumption of goods and services renders the joint examination of urban and rural living standards more difficult. The role of transactions made outside the marketplace could not but respond to the level of GDP per capita: presumably, the higher the latter, the lower the former. The economic heterogeneity of countries included in the samples used by Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012) and Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012), and the very long period under consideration, might have an effect on the role of the market as a source of income. The very ideas of the «industrious revolution» and the «consumer revolution» illustrate the role of the family as an important character, probably the main one, in this story. In 16^th-century Seville, according to González-Mariscal (Reference González-Mariscal2013), the spectacular growth of prices — much higher than estimated by Hamilton (Reference Hamilton1934) — forced families not only to change consumption patterns (e.g. substituting bacon for meat or introducing dry cod in their diet) but also to increase the supply of labour of wives and children in the market in order to prevent living standards from falling below the subsistence level. Sarasúa (Reference Sarasúa2013) suggests for southern central Spain in the mid-18^th century that the rate of activity in the labour market of children between 10 and 15 years alone was 39 per cent. In the same vein, Humphries (Reference Humphries2012) is emphatic: «child labor, in terms of child participation rates and younger working, increased during the classic era of industrialization» (Humphries Reference Humphries2012). In fact, finding welfare ratios lower than 1 in periods of population growth, as shown in Table 2 (Madrid between 1750 and 1849 and rural Mexico in 1800-1849) suggests a growing participation of family members in the labour market and/or in non-market activitiesFootnote ³¹ . Additional support is found in Llopis and García-Montero (Reference Llopis and García-Montero Montero2011). Their study of wages and prices in 18^th-century Madrid shows that family incomes did not necessarily evolve like men’s wages because of: (a) an increasing participation of women in the labour marketFootnote ³² and (b) women’s wages could decrease less than men’sFootnote ³³ . The limitations of the unchanging assumptions over time and space are further illustrated by Moreno (Reference Moreno2006) in his study of living standards in Palencia between 1800 and 1936Footnote ³⁴ .

The across-the-board 5 per cent allowance for rent might also be misleading, as, presumably, it penalises rural living standards and less dynamic towns over the Early Modern EraFootnote ³⁵ . van Zanden’s (Reference van Zanden2005) estimates for Holland show a higher and growing percentage (7 and 11 per cent «c. 15^th» and «c. 18^th», respectively) of labourers’ expenditures. For Seville, González-Mariscal (Reference González-Mariscal2013) shows that housing was by far the most rapidly growing item in the CPI: it grew from 6.5 per cent of total expenditure in 1521-1550 to 15.5 per cent in 1551-1600, and to 17.4 per cent in 1601-1650. According to Drelichman and González-Agudo (Reference Drelichman and González-Agudo2012), in 16^th-century Toledo, rent represented 9.5 per cent of total expenditures and evolved differently to other items. In spite of this, an appropriate consideration of housing costs reduces the welfare gap between Toledo and Antwerp and Amsterdam by 9.5 and 4 per cent, respectively. The estimates of Llopis et al. (Reference Llopis, García-Montero Hiernaux, García-Montero Montero, Gónzalez Mariscal and Hernández García-Montero2009) for 1680-1800 are 12.5 per cent for Madrid and Seville and 10 per cent for Palencia. Lana (Reference Lana2002) also finds higher rents for Navarre: 7.8 per cent in 1780 for a family of five members, and between 6 and 10 per cent for a family of four members. Based on a previous monographic study of housing conditions in late Bourbon Mexico City (Calderón Reference Calderón2009), Calderón (Reference Calderón2014) proposes 8.5 per cent for the main American town until the 19^th century. In some cases, even housing shares of 5 per cent might be failing to capture the fact that the real expenditure on that item could change over time: in Palencia, according to Moreno (Reference Moreno2002), it grew from an index of 85.4 (1780-1784=100) to 204.8 in 1825 and moved downwards to 141.5 in 1837 (Moreno Reference Moreno2002, pp. 108-110).

Far from minor is the problem that Allen’s methodology is very data demanding. Very long series of prices of all items in the basket (soap, candles, fuel, etc.) — some of them not usually recorded — and wages are needed for different locations and long periods. Despite all the efforts made over decades by the many scholars who have produced data on prices and wages, such a huge amount of data is simply not available. This explains why number of procedures for filling in a plethora of gaps is frequently used, albeit not always convincing (regressions, interpolations, averages, assumptions on the behaviour of markets and goods, etc.). For instance, in Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012), the series of wages for Argentina between 1775 and 1810 results from combining data on «construction workers» (1775-1810) with «government officials» and «bricklayers» (1810-1860) from Buenos Aires; that for Peru mixes the wages of «mita workers» in Huamanga (1597-1603) — a mining area in the Andes — with those of «porters» in Lima (1625-1760). The explanations of the sources used for Mexico City wagesFootnote ³⁶ and firewoodFootnote ³⁷ by Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2011b) represent interesting examples of arguable attempts to fill the gaps in the available time series. The way in which Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012) account for missing data for textiles in Peru, Potosi and Chile also raises some reservationsFootnote ³⁸ . Using prices from Lima (the commercially active and coastal capital of the viceroyalty) «to interpolate missing price data for Potosi» — a remote mining town, located more than 2,000 miles away from Lima and closer to northern Argentina’s markets — does not seem to be fully justified (Arroyo-Abad et al. Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012). In Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012), prices of cotton cloth in Lima substituted for those in Bogota. Thus, it is not always easy to understand how the various methods used to build continuous time series from incomplete or non-existent information for all items in the basket influence the results obtained in terms of real wages.

Given the dynamics usually exhibited by prices and wages in pre-industrial economies (volatility vs. stability, respectively), the errors in the estimation techniques used to overcome the lack of much original data are likely to affect (volatile) prices more than (stable) wages. Hence, missing-data intervention produces worse results in the case of prices than in that in the case of wages. Thus, confronted with the paucity of data, we have opted for a version of the approach previously suggested by Allen himself for the case of Asia: «In view of the weakness of Asian price data for other commodities, it might be better to relate wages to the basic cost of a calorie implied by bread and rice rather than to the broader cost of living» (Allen Reference Allen2005, p. 122).

The «universal» consumption basket estimated by Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012) clearly contrasts with the specific patterns of consumption found in different parts of Spanish America. Differences between the simple (four items) and «quasivegetarian» food component of the former and the diversity and relative sophistication of the latter are significant. The CPI estimated for a mestizo family by Brown (Reference Brown1992) shows that bacon, mutton, sugar, potatoes and coca leaves, among other goods, were consumed in Arequipa. The cost of this basket decreased from 199.6 pesos/year in 1690 to 129.5 in 1820. This decrease contrasts with the increase estimated by Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012) for Lima: from 699 g of silver in 1675-1724 to 729 in 1775-1820. Johnson (Reference Johnson1992) suggests that meat and fish (fresh and dried) were important items in the diet of the Buenos Aires commoners, along with significant quantities of bread and yerba mateFootnote ³⁹ . The structure of expenditure in Santiago de Chile reveals that consumption was also quite diverse, as fat, sugar, animal proteins (dried beef, mutton, fresh and dried fish, and seafood), fruit and vegetables (potatoes) play an important role: the share of non-vegetarian items, animal fat excluded, is 27.1 per cent in 1754-1758 (Larraín Reference Larraín1992).

The CPIs constructed by Llopis et al. (Reference Llopis, García-Montero Hiernaux, García-Montero Montero, Gónzalez Mariscal and Hernández García-Montero2009), González-Mariscal (Reference González-Mariscal2013) and Calderón (Reference Calderón2014) for, respectively, 18^th-century Madrid, Seville and Palencia, Seville from 1521 to 1650, and 18^th-century Mexico City show a similar picture of variety in food consumption that contrasts sharply with the extremely austere basket specified by Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012). In different proportions, in the Spanish baskets we find less cereal and more meat and wine than expected and even some delicacies (sugar, spices, etc.), albeit with a very light weight. Moreno’s (Reference Moreno2006) study of living standards in Palencia in 1800-1936 also shows food items that are ill-represented or not represented at all in Allen’s «bare-bones» basket (meat, wine and milk). The Mexican basket surprises by its richness, as it includes relatively abundant animal proteins and alcoholic drinks, along with some vegetables, sugar and cocoa, among others.

As far as meat is concerned, Braudel (Reference Braudel1974) already noticed that the comparative European «privilege» in terms of meat consumption during the Early Modern Era, although declining with respect to other civilisations such as India, China, Turkey and Egypt, was «re-established» towards the east (e.g. Hungary) and Spanish America (New Spain and, especially, around Montevideo and Buenos Aires). In this respect, Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012) propose a more accurate approach than that of Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012), as they distinguish between «meat eaters» (Argentina and Chile) and «others» (Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico and Peru). The consumption basket of the «others» is assumed to include much more meat than that of Europe (35 kg per capita vs. 5 kg), although the evidence suggests that meat consumption might be even higher. As for Mexico City, Quiroz (Reference Quiroz2005) is clear in this respect: «Comer carne no era un privilegio para la sociedad capitalina» (Quiroz Reference Quiroz2005, p. 81). The aboriginals were not excluded from this easy access to meat: «La carne de res era uno de los alimentos básicos para el mantenimiento de los grupos indígenas instalados en la periferia urbana» (Quiroz Reference Quiroz2005, p. 87). Thus, the impressive level of meat consumption estimated for Mexico City in 1767 (142 kg per capita) comes as no surprise. Her estimates for lard (125 kg per capita) and eggs (1,104 units per capita) are also remarkable. The difference with Europe and other parts of the world, North America included, becomes evidentFootnote ⁴⁰ . The share of meat in the CPI calculated by Calderón (Reference Calderón2014) is 16 per cent. Quiroz (Reference Quiroz2005) does not overlook distributional issues. She «ideally» proposes a daily consumption per capita of 163 and 460 g for, respectively, mestizos and Indians and «whites». Accepting these conjectural estimates, the yearly consumption of a family of the size assumed by Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012) would be nearly 180 kg for the «poor» and more than 500 kg for the «rich»Footnote ⁴¹ .

Any possible reduction of meat consumption in response to religious alimentary practices, as suggested by Johnson (Reference Johnson1992)Footnote ⁴² , could not change the basic fact: Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012) and, to a lesser extent, Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012), seem to underestimate meat consumption in some Spanish American territories, even if some decline in the late decades of the 18^th century was the likely result of price increasesFootnote ⁴³ . Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012) partially avoid this problem as they assume a yearly consumption of 105 kg per capita for Argentina and Chile. While the notion that meat was very cheap in Argentina is widely accepted, the comparatively meat-intensive consumption patterns in Santiago de Chile shown by Quiroz (Reference Quiroz2009) are somewhat less well known.

The difference between the hypothetical meat consumption in Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012) and the real one suggested by abundant qualitative and quantitative evidence significantly contributes to their «pessimism». The more realistic assumptions about meat consumption adopted by Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012) substantially increase the degree of «optimism» — no matter how conditional — concerning Spanish America living standards. The inclusion of other goods that were usually consumed by the Spanish Americans of the Bourbon period would have a similar effect.

As far as alcohol is concerned, habits in some American territories do not fit with the claim that it «was seldom enjoyed» (Allen et al. Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012, p. 872). Abundant evidence suggests that rather the contrary was true. Wine represented 4.5 per cent of the agrarian products price index for Santiago de Chile in 1754-1758, down from 18 per cent for that of 1669-1673 (Larraín Reference Larraín1992). Wine and eau de vie were increasingly consumed during the late Bourbon period in Buenos Aires (Johnson Reference Johnson1992). von Humboldt mentioned the «enormous quantity» of pulque consumed by the inhabitants of Mexico City (compared with total alcoholic beverages sold in Paris), irrespective of their diverse ethnicity (Indians, mestizos, mulatos and even a majority of the creole whites) (von Humboldt Reference von Humboldt1822/1991, p. 133)Footnote ⁴⁴ . Chicha was popular among the Andean population and Brown (Reference Brown1992), therefore, includes it, along with coca leaves, in his basket representative of mestizo families’ expenditures in 18^th-century Arequipa. Neither chicha nor coca leaves were part of the ill-defined «Hispanic family», which, on the contrary, consumed wine and tobacco.

Tobacco was present in the everyday lives of many Spanish Americans. At least in 18^th-century Mexico City, where cigarettes were «invented», even women and children were heavy smokers: «Esclavas y criadas, para entretener a los hijos de sus amos, les dejaban chupar de sus cigarros; así se escribirá con horror a mediados del siglo XVIII que en México «fuman hasta los párvulos» y que en muchos niños arraigaba la costumbre cuando contaban diez años de edad» (Céspedes Reference Céspedes1992, p. 31). Two centuries earlier, smoking was already common among the poor, after previously having been «cosa de esclavos y bebedores de taberna y gente de poca consideración» (Céspedes Reference Céspedes1992, p. 29)Footnote ⁴⁵ . Thus, based on a previous work, Calderón (Reference Calderón2009, Reference Calderón2014) estimates at 9 per cent the share of tobacco within his CPI for Mexico City. von Humboldt confirms that consumption of tobacco in New Spain «debe parecer enorme» (von Humboldt Reference von Humboldt1822/1991, p. 298). Smoking was also significant in Spain. von Humboldt considered «exhorbitante» the stock of powder tobacco — other types of tobacco excluded — that might occasionally be accumulated at Seville (eighteen or nineteen million pounds), while the royal monopoly in Spain yielded, in 1782-1786, an annual net revenue of six million pesos (roughly 140 metric tonnes of silver for a population of fewer than eleven million inhabitants)Footnote ⁴⁶ . In other parts of Hispanic America, with the exception of Cuba, tobacco consumption was probably less widespread. However, the revenue obtained by the Crown from the tobacco monopoly was far from insignificant (Céspedes Reference Céspedes1992), which suggests a more than merely occasional use of this non-essential.

Despite its internal heterogeneities, the Hispanic world on both sides of the Atlantic seems, to some extent, to share some early and peculiar consumption patterns. These patterns were unevenly distributed over the whole Early Modern Era, across territories and throughout all social segments. Meat, sugar, alcoholic beverages, cocoa, tobacco and probably some Asian manufactures such as anti-flea combs, cheap porcelain and textiles (paliacates and rebozos are still part of the Mexican popular national dress) were usual among elites and commoners. The latter should not be always identified with aboriginals (e.g. Southern Cone and, to varying extents, New Spain, Upper Peru, the Caribbean Basin, etc.). Therefore, abundant evidence is at odds with the universal and permanent subsistence basket proposed by Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012) as a valid standard measure of material welfare in pre-independence Spanish America.

An excessively simple «sober» basket of consumption turns out to be unable to capture distinct features of the complex and heterogeneous nutritional patterns over the Early Modern Era in the cradle of the «Columbus Exchange» and probably of the «consumer revolution» as well. Based on CPIs that, paradoxically, are closer to the «first generation» than to the «second generation», the simple estimate of real wages by Dobado-González and García-Montero (Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2009, Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2010, Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2014) offers straightforward intuitive results for Bourbon America that are clearly less «pessimistic» than those of Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012). Besides, reassuringly enough, they are not inconsistent with the findings of Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012), if reinforced with substantial evidence on biological living standards. The Dobado-García «optimistic» picture does not contrast with that of Challú and Gómez-Galvarriato (Reference Challú and Gómez-Galvarriato2014) for Mexico City, in which heights are also used. Some differences in the interpretation of the biological welfare of the New Spaniards between these authors and ours exist and will be discussed below. Our estimates of economic and biological living standards show significant variations within Spanish America, as was also claimed regarding welfare ratios by Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012). Nonetheless, living standards across Europe were also far from similar, that is, Amsterdam vs. Madrid or London vs. Leipzig (see Tables 3 and 4). Thus, the idea that Spanish America was a «normal» part of the pre-industrial world should be seriously considered: life was not especially harsh for its uniquely multi-ethnic commoners. Most likely some of its territories were — both economically and biologically — wealthier and less unequal — or, at least, not poorer or more unequal — than other societies of the Early Modern Era.

The few anthropometric studies of pre-independence Spanish America published since 2009 (Challú Reference Challú2009, Reference Challú2010; Grajales-Porras and López-Alonso Reference Grajales-Porras and López-Alonso2011; Challú and Gómez-Galvarriato Reference Challú and Gómez-Galvarriato2014) deal with New Spain and are closer to «pessimism» than «optimism». As Dobado-González and García-Montero (Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2009, Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2010, Reference Dobado-González and García-Montero2014) basically share with them the same methodology, our differences with their studies are of another kindFootnote ⁴⁷ . If we consider the whole of Spanish America (see Table 6), it turns out that we can find all ranges of heights: from very tall Argentineans to very short south-eastern New SpaniardsFootnote ⁴⁸ . This variance was not larger than across Eurasia and it is consistent with the variability observed in living standards. In the 1750s, «blancos» and «pardos» from Maracaibo, with heights of, respectively, 167.5 and 166 cm, were taller than males in Moravia, France, Low Austria, Bohemia, Russia and Spain (see Martínez Carrión Reference Martínez Carrión2012). Regarding New Spain, some decrease in males’ average height — that could parallel that of real wages during the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries — seems more acceptable to us than the «Great Decline» proposed by Challú (Reference Challú2009, Reference Challú2010). Compared with Europe, this decline was rather modest: a decrease of 2.5 cm from the 1740s to the 1780s does not seem properly «great», as in many European countries it exceeded 0.9 cm/decade between the 18^th-century peak and through (Komlos and Küchenhoff Reference Komlos and Küchenhoff2012). Moreover, the huge decline estimated by these authors for the cohorts of English males born between the 1740s and the 1840s might be interpreted in the sense that English males might finally become shorter than the Mexicans. This would be the case if we accept the estimates of physical statures for the 1840s of López-Alonso (Reference López-Alonso2010) and Carson (Reference Carson2005, Reference Carson2007), which contrast sharply with those of Challú for the 1830s. The claim that «men of Spanish descent» born from the 1750s to the 1770s in Atlixco and Tehuacán (Grajales-Porras and López-Alonso Reference Grajales-Porras and López-Alonso2011) was «the only case which found that Europeans were taller than their colonial counterparts» may be true for those two locations but not as a general rule for the whole New Spain or other Spanish territories. Mexicans were taller than Spaniards in 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880 (Challú Reference Challú2010, p. 92). The limited evidence on physical welfare used by Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012) is not inconsistent with our view on the subjectFootnote ⁴⁹ .

Further research is needed for a better understanding of the interactions between economic welfare — measured by real wages or by GDP per capita — and biological welfare. As for Spanish America, meat-eating Argentineans are rather tall and rich in terms of real wages and GDP per capita. However, the inhabitants of Maracaibo — whether «blancos» or «pardos» — are taller than what might be expected from their comparatively low GDP per capita, while Central New Spaniards, or even more clearly those from the northern areas of that viceroyalty, do not seem to be as tall as their protein-rich diet would suggest. In Europe, similar inconsistencies may also be found. In particular, the case of Lombardy is shocking: very low real wages in Milan do not prevent that part of Italy from being only second to England in heights in the mid-18^th century. Indeed, inequality matters — including within-family access to food (Borderías et al. Reference Borderías, Pérez-Fuentes and Sarasúa2014) — but probably genetics and other factors also play their part. In any case, it is clearly beyond the purpose of this paper to contribute to this complex puzzle.

4. FINAL REMARKS

It has been my intention to show the significant progress that the study of living standards of pre-independence Spanish Americans from an international comparative perspective has experienced in the last 5 years. The previous literature, whose existence made the more recent one possible, was empirically very rigorous at a local scale. However, any attempt to compare the particular case study with others — not generally for much longer than a century — was absent. This lack of comparability constitutes a serious limitation in the interpretation of the results obtained within the appropriate context, that is, the global history of the pre-industrial world. Thus, finding that real wages decreased in late 18^th-century Spanish America is rather an empirical regularity shared with most countries in Europe than a specific singularity that anticipated the irreversible economic crisis of the «colonial system». On the contrary, some of the post-2009 literature suffers from the opposite problem: the gains in terms of comparability over time (Early Modern Era) and space (Eurasia and the Americas) are achieved — in particular, but not only, by Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012) — at the expense of accuracy, therefore missing the heterogeneity of consumption patterns between Spanish America and the rest of the world and within Spanish America. This weakness inevitably tends to bias the results towards «pessimism» or at least limits their «optimism».

Dobado-González and García-Montero’s methodology for studying real wages was initially intended to assess what Dobado-González (Reference Dobado-González2009) defines as «new orthodoxy»: the influent idea that contemporary problems of development in Spanish America (low growth and high inequality) have «colonial origins». The practically insurmountable problems involved in finding the information required to estimate the cost of the baskets proposed by Allen (Reference Allen2001) and van Zanden (Reference van Zanden2005) suggested the choice of a simpler approach. Indeed, it has obvious shortcomings: rural and urban (miners or others) did not only consume separately grain, meat or sugar. However, jointly considered, these three products represented the bulk of the commoners’ expenditure — albeit not the whole of it — and cover consumption of food items of varied income elasticities. Regarding the interesting remark made by Allen (Reference Allen2001) in defense of new CPIs, it is important to bear in mind that Spanish America was different from Poland: it was by no means a major grain exporter. Thus, grain wages are not as misleading as they may be in the Polish case. Abundant evidence suggests that consumption patterns (heterogeneous and changing over the Early Modern Era as they were within Spanish America) do not adjust without frictions with the assumed universal and constant «bare-bones» basket used by Allen et al. (Reference Allen, Murphy and Schneider2012). Improvements made by Arroyo-Abad et al. (Reference Arroyo-Abad, Davies and van Zanden2012) do not fully solve this problem, as results obtained within the same methodological framework by Challú and Gómez-Galvarriato (Reference Challú and Gómez-Galvarriato2014) show. A more detailed consideration of heights offers an interesting additional perspective that is absent in alternative approaches; Challú and Gómez-Galvarriato (Reference Challú and Gómez-Galvarriato2014) being an exception.

Given the trade-off between scope — that is, long-term international comparisons — and focus — that is, rigorous consideration of local circumstances — it is probably time for the birth of a «third generation» of CPIs better adapted for the study of world living standards in the past. They should be more responsive to differences in consumption patterns over time, assigning changing shares to food items in the CPIs. Housing and other non-food items should receive similar treatment. By doing so, Gónzalez Mariscal (2013) shows that his «third-generation» CPI for Seville evolved between the early 16^th century and the late 17^th century in a different way to the alternative Sevillian CPI based on Allen’s (Reference Allen2001) fixed basket. While trends are similar, differences in levels are significant — since 1560, González Mariscal’s CPI is always higher than Allen’s. The gap between the two series is especially relevant from 1590 to 1640: roughly 33 per cent. Presumably, other differences may appear when comparing rural and urban locations, dynamic and stagnant towns, periods of inflation and deflation, not to mention those of «consumer revolutions». Peculiarities in consumption patterns across the world should also be taken into account. Indeed, this «third generation» of CPIs will be very effort demanding and probably not possible for all times and places. But they will describe the diverse and changing history of living standards in the past more accurately, especially when the family is considered as the basic, and adaptive, unit of income and expenditure. Taxation on consumption that might significantly affect price differentials between locations should also receive due attention.

Meanwhile, Dobado-González and García-Montero’s double approach (real wages as power purchasing parity of selected goods and heights) offers a useful international comparison of real wages and heights over time. Evidence is found in favour of an «optimistic» view of pre-independent Spanish America living standards. This contrasts in a significant way with the common wisdom on the topic, according to which, in its crudest version, the «colonial legacy» was the mother of all contemporary evils afflicting this part of the world.