This paper uses the theoretical and empirical contributions of recent international literature on the determinants of long run economic growth to explain the historical origin of the enormous regional economic inequalities which characterize Colombia. The results indicate that geography and culture are not direct determinants of differences in regional per capita income. Nevertheless, geography did play a central but indirect role through its influence on settlement patterns during the colonial period. Although econometric estimations indicate that the colonial legacy influenced contemporary differences in regional income, it is not clear if this effect operates via the institutions or human capital.

Not all Europeans migrated to the United States. Between 1879 and 1930 around 13 million of Europeans went to Latin America; however, Latin America is not fully incorporated into current debates on the cost and benefits from Atlantic migration. This paper surveys Latin America's immigration from the late nineteenth century to 1930. It assesses inferences about European migrants in Latin America derived from the experience of migrants in the United States and questions its validity. The topics covered here include migration trends and chronology, national origin of the flows and the evolution of real wages. New data on the cost of passages for transatlantic migration is also presented. This is followed by an examination of the immigrants' contribution to economic growth in Latin America dealing basically with the issue of human capital brought in by European immigrants. The extent to which immigrants alter the composition of the labour force and the demographic structure, both in the short and the long run is also examined.

The frame of this work is the reception that Jovellanos' Informe de Ley Agraria (1795) known in Spain. It is specially focused on the Spanish translation of a conspicuous agronomic work by F. Rozier, a French author. The translation was induced by the Informe and was elaborated by J. Álvarez Guerra. It has been considered as a notorious achievement of the Spanish agronomic movement of the Enlightenment. Nevertheless, the translator's «Discurso Preliminar» has not already been studied. This «Discurso» included an entire summary of the economic ideas of the French Physiocracy, so it allows us to consider it as a Physiocrat alternative of the Jovellano's Informe. Two different issues are particularly involved by this research: firstly, the influence of Physiocracy in Spain was stronger than it has been recognised; secondly, free trade was consubstantial to the Spanish economic program of the Enlightenment, although always as a minority option.

This study presents the first results of an on-going study of longevity of large Spanish family firms. Its main objective is to provide solid data for a topic in which opinions are more abundant than scientific statistics, as well as to identify the keys to the survival and competitiveness of the almost 250 firms included in the study. It concludes that this reality is not just the result of two decades of integration in Europe or a fortunate endowment with some natural resources, but the outcome of a long learning process and the combination of two factors: specialization in market niches in which the state had no strategic interests and the creation of personal networks of cooperation and influence within and outside Spain.