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Objective/Context: The paper provides a comprehensive overview of Latin American mining history, exploring cross-pollination opportunities between mining historians and scholars of the emerging field of the new history of capitalism. The analysis spans from the region’s integration into global markets during the 1500s to the twilight of export-led growth in the early twentieth century. Methodology: The study builds on an overview of both classic and contemporary literature, offering new insights into understanding existing data on mining history within a global context. By incorporating perspectives from geology, ecology, and economics, the article investigates the connections between specific mineral deposits and different paths of capitalistic development across Latin America. Originality: The paper sketches some of the gaps in the analysis of global and local flows of minerals and comments on notable contributions to the broader field of Latin American history. It introduces innovative approaches for the study of output cycles, geological and ecological endowments, technological spillovers, and mining economics. Conclusions: First, the existing literature has predominantly focused on precious metals, with few scholars studying non-precious metals and non-metallic minerals. Second, the narratives surrounding mining history have been primarily centered on silver, overshadowing the significance of bimetallism in understanding the emergence of global capitalism. Thirdly, examining the microeconomic dynamics of mining in the region may present fresh opportunities to explore the impact of mining on sectoral and managerial transformations. Finally, studies of the two-way interaction of capitalism and mining need to include research on the energy and environmental systems that underpinned mineral extraction and production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population aging has positioned as a key demographic change. This paper analyzes the characteristics of older adults in situations of dependence, care strategies and the profile of caregivers for Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, El Salvador and Uruguay. The population in a situation of functional dependence is mostly female and over 75 years old. Between 54% and 70% receive some type of care, with unpaid family care being the main care strategy. Unpaid caregivers are mostly women, under 65, and economically inactive. We evidence a negative relationship between the status of elderly caregiver and employment, that is stronger for women. Although elderly informal care leads to a lower probability of employment among individuals of all ages and income quintiles, the employment gap between caregivers and non-caregivers narrows substantially among higher-income people. Improving care for older people would have positive effects on female employment and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the development of Latin America over the past three decades by using growth incidence curves and weighted growth rates calculated on the basis of harmonized microdata from national household surveys. Over the past three decades, Latin America has made progress in fundamental socioeconomic indicators. On average, there has been significant growth in income as well as some educational and housing variables, particularly among the lower income strata. In contrast, progress was slower among the most vulnerable population in other important areas (e.g., higher education, female labor participation). Despite notable improvements in various areas of development captured through household surveys, the evidence reveals that substantial shortfalls and disparities still persist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/context: The paper examines the contribution of think tanks (TTs) to debating ideas and their relationship with the environment. Specifically, it analyzes the variations introduced by the electoral campaign in the political positions of TTs and the role of ideology and party affiliation as possible determinants. Methodology: The content of the web pages of ten TTs is monitored before and during the electoral campaign for the 2021 presidential elections in Chile, where numerous TTs have become protagonists. For each TT, attention to socio-political issues is analyzed, and the trend of their positions is recorded. Conclusions: The analysis shows that TTs adapt their communicative agenda to the electoral campaign and that their ideology is a principal variable in this strategy. Originality: Evidence is provided on the entry of TTs in electoral campaigns with differences between conservatives and progressives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives/Context: The main objective of this paper is to present an explanation for the divergent development trajectories of two regions of the capitalist world-economy, Latin America and East Asia. Methodology: starting from the concepts of world-economy, world region, regional focus and long durée, it is intended to verify how the forms of integration of the two regions to the capitalist worldeconomy affected them in three essential dimensions for economic development: State, capital accumulation and technological capability, from the 16th century to the present. Conclusions: having autonomously developed the three dimensions analyzed to the point of equating to the West at least until the end of the 17th century, when it was incorporated into the capitalist world-economy in the first half of the19th century, East Asia was able to take advantage of this integration and advance in global hierarchies of wealth and power. On the other hand, Latin America, which as a geopolitical entity was born together with the capitalist world-economy in the 16th century, was at that moment at a relatively low level of development in these dimensions, which, together with colonialism, continued to restrict its development and maintaining the region in its historical position as a periphery of the capitalist world-economy. Originality: the originality of this research is to establish a historically grounded principle of variation to explain the divergence in recent development trajectories of Latin America and East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 has exposed, reproduced, and created new inequalities in Latin America and the world. In this introductory paper, we discuss the impact of extant inequities on vulnerability to COVID-19 but we also identify new, and some unexpected, vulnerabilities. We emphasize vulnerabilities to the disease as well as vulnerabilities to policies and other responses in the fight against COVID-19. Building on insights from Peter Hall and Michele Lamont's work on social resilience, we draw on the papers of this special issue to identify the important role of the state in addressing vulnerabilities and discuss the types of social resilience that vulnerable groups have turned to in their response to COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically studies the impact of government quality on foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in a sample of 46 economies in the 1996-2018 period. In particular, we comparatively examine to what extent quality of government influences FDI inflows in two groups of countries that show relevant differences in their levels of government quality: 33 OECD countries and 13 Latin American countries. Applying panel data methods, we found that institutional quality positively affects FDI in both groups of countries, and the impact is stronger in OECD countries than it is in Latin American countries. This study reveals that the design of public policies that strengthen institutional quality is essential, particularly in Latin American countries with weaker institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/Context: This paper studies the role of the Chilean state during the great drought of 1967-1969 as a mediator between human beings and nature. Institutional adaptations and the effort to improve the infrastructure were elements of continuity with respect to previous droughts, but there were novelties as well, such as attempts to pursue weather modification and the artificial melting of glaciers. The support of technologies and scientists operating from peripheral state institutions was essential for these purposes. All the above took place in the context of the Cold War when the predominant environmental imaginaries made human intervention look favorable and necessary for the modernization of countries. Methodology: Diverse primary sources were used, such as ministerial documents, decrees, bulletins, and reports of different state institutions that allowed understanding the logic of state management during the water crisis. Similarly, research in national and international press helped identify how imaginaries about the environment were expressed and disseminated publicly, which tended to validate novel efforts to control nature. Originality: This is an original study for Latin America, which addresses the early appearance of science and technology in the efforts of what today would be known as geoengineering: mainly through the observation of new actors, which expanded the traditional forms of mediation between humans and nature, led by the state, concerning climate crises. Conclusions: In the 1960s, optimism grew for the human capacity to control and manipulate water resources by appealing to ways other than those previously known, associated with infrastructure development. Expert knowledge was placed at the service of peripheral institutions of the state to promote these changes with lasting consequences. The human desire to control nature at all costs was validated, which helps explain the temporal projection of experiments with artificial rain and glacier control to the present day in Chile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]