El estado uruguayo 1906-1930 : el balance fiscal, economía y política

This paper aims to contribute to the interpretation of the economic history of Uruguay during the first decades of the 20th century. Although there is abundant literature about this period, public finances still need in-depth study. We offer an overview of the fiscal budget of the Central Government and its relation with the economic performance and the political circumstances of the batllista´s governments. We expect that we can bring new fundamentals for the understanding of the first batllismo, and, in words of Real de Azúa, may help to explain “the impulse and the stops”. In order to relate the fiscal budget with other economic, social and political variables, we critically discuss the sources and the consistency of statistical information and elaborate a strategy for the homogenization of the series. We defined different scenarios and identify possible relations between the financial necessities of the public sector and the social-political dynamics. Among our results, we find an interesting relationship between the government finances and the socio-politic dynamics. Moreover we identify a relationship between the surplus and the political dynamic characterized by the “reformist impulse”, while the stop maybe linked with the fiscal and political crisis of the “adjust”. The most important conclusion is that the transition from the “reforming policy” to the “conservative republic” may also be interpreted through the public finances.