Jorge Álvarez (PHES - UdelaR)
Henry Willebald (IECON - UdelaR)
The aim of this paper is to explain the impact of the establishment of the system of landownership on the income distribution and economic growth of settler economies (Argentina, Australia, New Zealand and Uruguay) during the First Globalization. Considering a conceptual framework that combines the contributions of the New Institutional Economic Theory with Neo-ricardian models tradition, we describe the process of the distribution of the land property rights in historical perspective, analyze the characteristics of the land tenure system in a comparative perspective and estimate the functional income distribution in the agriculture activity. Our results show that the land rent absorb a much larger part of total output in River Plate countries than in Australasia. This represents a negative incentive to productivity growth that contributes to explain the relative failure of Argentina and Uruguay compared to Australasian countries.
