Resumen

BASUALDO, Victoria. América Latina como el nuevo Sur: los historiadores económicos norteamericanos y su conceptualización del "atraso" económico latinoamericano. Cuad. Sur, Hist. [online]. 2005, n.34, pp. 227-298. ISSN 1668-7604.

This paper critically examines the current debate among a group of outstanding American Economic historians about the causes of the Latin American social and economic backwardness contrasting with the USA's development. This controversy has developed between scholars who argued that the central element to explain the causes of economic development or underdevelopment is the availability of natural resources and geographical preconditions, and a second academic tradition which concentrated on the role of institutions in modifying natural resources. This controversy between factor-endowments and institutional perspectives concerning Latin America was influenced by a previous debate on the economic and social differences between the North and South of the United States during the period preceding the Civil War. Therefore, this paper analyzes, in the first place, some relevant aspects of this first debate within American historiography. In the second place, it examines the terms of the debate on Latin American and North American paths of development, that is, how the different perspectives explain the economic "backwardness" and "development" of these regions. Finally the paper focuses on the impact, advantages and problems of both perspectives, and some recent contributions that opened new lines of research.