José
Peres-Cajías
Universitat
de Barcelona
The political disruption that is taking place worldwide
during the last years has prompted the proliferation of analyses (in academia
and beyond) that link current vote decisions with particular regional
economic and political legacies. Economic historians can offer critical
insights to this public debate and the reconstruction of regional GDPs is one
alternative of doing so (see here for a discussion on the European case).
Taking into account recent methodological advances and
the long-standing importance of the spatial dimension (both in economic and
political terms) in the Latin American literature, a group of scholars lead the reconstruction of
regional GDPs in the region. Part of the outcomes of this collective effort will
be published in a volume this year, which includes the working
paper that I published in the European Historical Economics
Society (EEHS).
The paper reconstructs the evolution of Bolivian
regional GDPs from the 1950s onwards. Beyond the contribution to the Bolivian
historiography, I suggest that the study of the Bolivian case may offer
alternative insights to the international debate because of the landlocked
nature of the country. Indeed, because of this feature, the location of
economic activity can be highly influenced by investments in public infrastructure.
The study shows that, in contrast to most of Latin
American experiences, the relative importance of Bolivian regions varied
importantly throughout time. Initially, I prove this idea through the analysis
of regional population data, which is available since 1846 (two decades after
Independence, 1825). For instance, whereas the relative importance of the
department of La Paz maintained somehow stable around 30% of total Bolivian
population since 1846 to 2012, there is a clear reversal of fortune between
Potosi (seat of the famous colonial mining center) and Santa Cruz: the relative
importance of the former dropped from 16% (1846) to 8% (2012) and that of the
latter increased from 6% (1846) to 26% (2012).
 |
| Map 1. The Relative Importance of Bolivian Departments (Bolivian pc GDP=1), 1950 |
Thereafter, the analysis focuses on regional GDPs. The
study starts in 1950 given the lack of reliable and sufficient information that
allows estimating regional agriculture GDPs. When we look at regional GDP pc as
a fraction of the national GDP pc, there is a clear change in the relative
importance of Bolivian regions (see Maps 1 and 2). For instance, the GDP pc of the
southern department of Tarija was well below the national average in 1950 but
became the highest during the last years.
Changes are also noticeable when the relative
importance of regional GDP to national GDP is evaluated. For instance, the
relative importance of the western departments of La Paz, Oruro, and Potosí
decreased from 35%, 10% and 18% of GDP in 1950, to 25%, 6%, and 8% during the
last years. By contrast, the size of the economy of Santa Cruz was less than
10% of total GDP in 1950, became the second most important in the 1960s, and
the biggest since the mid-1990s, absorbing almost 30% of the Bolivian GDP in
recent years. Thus, since the 1950s, there has been a progressive change to the
center of gravity of the Bolivian economy, from a north-south axis located in
western departments to a west-east axis where La Paz and Cochabamba remain
critical but Santa Cruz consolidated as the most dynamic.
 |
Map 2. The Relative Importance of Bolivian Departments
(Bolivian pc GDP=1), 2012
|
In contrast to the European experience or other cases
in Latin America, the location of industries hardly is the driving force of
these changes. Indeed, the relative importance of manufacture production in
Bolivia remained stagnant around 15% of total GDP from the 1940s onwards. By
contrast, the evolution of Bolivian regional economies seems to be more
connected with the existence of particular natural resources endowments:
mineral resources in the case of western economies, fertile lands and oil
reserves in Santa Cruz and oil reserves in Tarija.
However, these natural resources became economically
significant thanks to public infrastructure and some institutional
arrangements. Indeed, the prevalence of western departments during the first
half of the 20th century is linked to the solution of border
controversies with neighboring countries and the construction of a railways
network that allowed to export minerals through the Pacific Ocean. Similarly,
it was thanks to the National Agrarian Reform of 1953 and the inauguration of
the highway between Cochabamba and Santa Cruz in 1954 that migrants could move
from west to east and agriculture products from east to west. Likewise, the
consolidation of Tarija is related with the long negotiation process between Brazil
and Bolivia (early 1970s-early 1990s) and the construction of a gas pipeline
between these two countries. In the end, this is good news: the economic fate
of Bolivian regions is highly interrelated with natural resources endowments…but
not only, so there is space for public policies.
José Peres-Cajías is Beatriu de Pinós Research Fellow at the Economics History Department, Universitat de Barcelona; more about his research can be read on his personal website.
