Using newly collected national and sub-national data, and historical case studies, this paper argues that differences in innovative capacity, captured by the density of engineers at the dawn of the Second Industrial Revolution, are important to explaining present income differences, and, in...

Chapter 1: Introduction -- Chapter 2: Latin American economic history in the light of the recent economic cycles -- Chapter 3: The Making of Mexico: The Political Economy of Conquest and Independence -- Chapter 4: Checks and Balances in the Colonial Government of Peru: Evidence from Office...