This article reports a fact that has not been well appreciated: tariffs in Latin America were the world's highest long before the Great Depression. This is a surprising fact, given that Latin America is believed to have exploited globalisation forces better than most regions before the 1920s, and given that the 1930s have always been viewed as the critical decade when Latin American policy became so anti-global. The explanation does not lie with imagined output gains from protection in these young republics, but rather with state revenue needs, strategic responses to trading partner tariffs and a need to compensate globalisation's losers.

This article explores the hidden politics around so-called ‘Merchandise No. 5’, a secret formula extract of Peruvian coca-leaf used in the American beverage Coca-Cola since the early twentieth century. It analyses the peculiar early political economy of US cocaine control which by the 1920s lent the Coca-Cola Company (and its associate, Maywood Chemical Co. of New Jersey) special roles in drug diplomacy with Peru. It then follows the paradoxical transnational politics of this coca flow during the era of emerging world restrictions on cocaine and coca (1915–65). Coca-Cola was deeply engaged in drug politics with Peru.

This article explores the performance of Mexico's exports in the early twentieth century, and particularly the so-called ‘export boom’ that took place during the Mexican Revolution (1910–17). By compiling the official trade figures from major trading partners, the article overcomes the deficiency of Mexican statistics that previously limited detailed analysis. Armed with more reliable data, this article defines the extent of the export boom and identifies its main contributing factors in terms of price, quantity and structure.

Since 2001, financial agents, country-risk analysts and credit rating agencies have considered Mexico to be a solvent or low-risk country. This article seeks to answer the question of whether Mexico has ceased to be an emerging market economy. Therefore, the aim of the article is to provide an overview of the factors that lie behind this positive view of Mexico. We believe the answer to this question is affirmative. The positive change in the export structure, a healthier financing of the external sector deficit and the change in the production structure support the hypothesis that Mexico is no longer a risky economy. And, therefore, Mexico is not subjected to the severe macroeconomic crises proper to traditional emerging market economies. Other elements, however, also mean Mexico cannot yet be described as an economy exempt from macroeconomic risks.

The rise of Cuban sugar production from 1800 to world dominance in the 1920s is briefly portrayed, together with its collapse, recovery and subsequent stagnation between the 1930s and the Revolution of 1959. The renewed and further growth of the sugar economy from 1959–89 is considered in the context of the uniquely favourable terms of trade then developed with the USSR and COMECON. These provided expanding markets and financed the technical transformation of the cultivation, harvesting, transhipment and processing of the sugar cane. From 1993 to 2002, following the implosion of the USSR and the dissolution of COMECON, Cuba could produce little more than one half of the average annual sugar output of the 1980s. This collapse and the inability of the island's planners to reverse it are discussed with particularly emphasis on post-1997 efforts to stabilise production and lower costs to meet persistently unfavourable world market sugar prices. A critical appraisal of the drastic ‘restructuring’ programme announced in 2002 is illustrated by primary data collected in fieldwork in 1994, 1996 and 2002 and Cuba's dramatic post-1991 decline from dominance in the international sugar trade is stressed.

The severe economic crisis facing several countries in the region over the last couple of years has led many observers to predict a backlash against market policies and even against democracy in the region. An economic crisis of such proportions should also, in theory, have negative effects on subjective well being. Our analysis, based on the Latinobarómetro surveys from 2000–2002, finds some unexpected positive trends, as well as notable differences between those countries that suffered from crises and those that did not. Satisfaction with market policies and with the way democracy is working has decreased among all groups except the very wealthy. In contrast, support for democracy as a system of government has increased, suggesting that respondents are increasingly distinguishing between democracy as a system of government, and the manner in which particular governments are performing. We also find evidence of changing attitudes towards redistributive taxation among the wealthy.

JEL Codes. D63 (welfare economics, equity, justice, inequality); D84 (information and uncertainty, expectations); I31 (general welfare; basic needs; quality of life); J62 (mobility, unemployment, intergenerational mobility)