Land Ownership Systems and Agrarian Income Distribution in New Zealand and Uruguay (1870-1914)

New Zealand and Uruguay enjoyed a virtuous incursion into the world economy during the first globalisation era (1870–1914) as settler economies producing food and raw materials. This allowed both countries to attain high economic growth rates and high levels of income per capita, and to establish the first welfare state systems at the beginning of the 20th Century. However, in spite of their similarities in size and in production and trade specialisation, they set up different land ownership regimes and had different income distribution patterns in the agrarian sector.This chapter analyses and compares the distribution process of land ownership rights from the colonial period until the early years of the 20th Century. It also examines the two countries’ land tenure systems, land ownership structures, and income distribution in the agrarian sector during the first globalisation.The main results show that Uruguay had a much more concentrated land ownership pattern than New Zealand and an income distribution pattern in which land ownership was the biggest source of income. In New Zealand, the land distribution process created a less concentrated structure of land ownership based on a family farm system. These outcomes were the result of a combination of at least six main factors: the laws that regulated the land distribution process; the state’s power to enforce land ownership rights; the historical actors; the geography and land quality of the territory; international market influences that introduced new demands and technologies; and technological changes at the local level to increase agrarian sector productivity