Lehrman American Studies Center

The Oxford Latin American Economic History Database (OxLAD) contains statistical series for a wide range of economic and social indicators covering twenty countries in the region for the period 1900-2000. Its purpose is to provide economic and social historians worldwide with a systematic recompilation of available statistical information in a single on-line source. The data presented in OxLAD have been selected with a view toward providing comprehensive coverage while ensuring as much consistency and intercountry comparability as possible in the definition, coverage, and valuation of the series. In doing so, it makes an important contribution to long-run comparative research on Latin America.

The project on the economic history of twentieth century Latin America from which the database derives was initiated and funded by the Inter-American Development Bank, and resulted in the study published as Thorp, R. 'Progress, Poverty and Exclusion: an Economic History of Latin America in the Twentieth Century' (Washington DC: Inter-American Development Bank, 1998).

OxLAD is the result of the collaboration of a number of scholars at Oxford. The original version, which appears as the statistical appendix to Thorp (1998), was compiled by Pablo Astorga under the guidance of Rosemary Thorp and Valpy FitzGerald; Ben Driggs and Catalina Sanint assisted in the compilation. OxLAD also benefits from new series on life expectancy and literacy produced by Shane and Barbara Hunt for the Thorp volume, commodity and manufactures price indices kindly contributed by José Antonio Ocampo and María Angela Parra, and economic data for Cuba and Uruguay kindly contributed by Claes Brundenius, and Luis Bértola, respectively.

The database was corrected, updated, and extended to its final form during 2002-3 by Ame Bergés under the guidance of Valpy FitzGerald and Rosemary Thorp. This was made possible by a generous grant from the Hewlett Foundation. OxLAD is produced by the Latin American Centre of Oxford University, one of four centres in the UK dedicated to postgraduate teaching and research in Latin American studies.

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