In Latin America, Colombia stands out for its more significant and persistent rural–urban educational performance gaps. This paper studies the evolution of this under-performance of Colombian rural areas by conducting a long-term descriptive analysis of a new dataset. The results suggest that the role of the national government is a source of these educational inequalities because rural education was introduced late and deficiently. That is, the national government delayed the provision of education to rural areas. Moreover, even when implemented, these rural educational initiatives proved deficient due to their lack of funds, lower quality, curricula detached from the rural context and a design that amplified regional disparities, thus producing and maintaining significant and persistent rural–urban gaps in education.

This article aims to analyse the finances of the Coimbra city council from 1557 to 1836. Our objective is to examine the causes of long-term changes in municipal revenue and expenditure, particularly during the extended period of decline that occurred between the mid-17th century and the late 18th century. This study will focus on the composition of revenue and expenditure, as well as on revenue collection mechanisms. We aim to present the empirical data on the revenue and expenditure components that allow us to understand the changes that took place. Finally, we hope to be able to explain the causes that led to significant variations in revenue and expenditure in a dialogue with existing literature. The primary sources used correspond to municipal revenue and expenditure books, supplemented by other sources such as legislation, correspondence and auction books.

Was there an early consumer revolution in Hispanic America? This article presents varied evidence supporting an affirmative answer to this question, especially regarding the case of New Spain. The inauguration of the Manilla Galleon trade route across the Pacific Ocean in 1565 was decisive in this respect. It made it possible that Asian goods (more or less finished silk and cotton textiles, porcelain, lacquerware, ivory religious images, furniture and spices, mainly) experienced an early diffusion throughout New Spain after arriving in Acapulco. This innovation in consumption patterns was adopted first by the elites, not much later, by the intermediate classes and, rather soon than not, by the commoners. Primary (i.e. Avalúos of the galleons' cargo) and secondary sources permit quantitatively exploring the possibilities of consumption of Asian goods by unprivileged segments of New Spain's population. We find that a non-negligible number of those goods were accessible to Mexico City labourers. Thus, it may be inferred that upper segments of society accessed it earlier and more easily. Therefore, New Spain should be included in any global narrative of the changes in consumption during the Early Modern Era.

This article contributes to the debate on regional disparities in living standards in Italy at the time of national unification (1861) by examining the health standards of army conscripts born between 1843 and 1871. Data regarding the conscripts born in 1843-1856 show that 35.4 per cent of youths examined were unfit for military service. Overall, the rejection rate in the peninsular south was similar to that of the northern regions. In the south, however, the share of conscripts rejected for insufficient height was notably higher. It is very likely that the persistent north-south gradient in average height in Italy is related to genetic factors.

The aim of our paper is to study some aspects of the textile industry of the city of Segovia and its land in the second half of the 16th century, interpreting them through spatial economy theories and specifically the industrial district approach. It is about seeing the competitive advantages of the integration and diffusion of the business organization in its geographical framework. The district's competitive advantages are linked to both transaction and production costs. One of them is to maximize the benefits of labor market segmentation with the emergence of a primary market for skilled labor. Another is the ease of diffusion of both technology and organizational and commercial techniques.

This research note documents the revision of a dataset of real wages in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela during 1920-2011. This resource was originally published by this journal in Astorga (2017). The revision affected all eighteen basic wage series plus six weighted-average series, with varying degrees of modification. The revised dataset is made available as supplementary material. Regardless of changes to the data, the key findings and conclusions of the 2017 paper still hold.