David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies
Harvard University
61 Kirkland St., Cambridge, Massachusetts

In the past decade scholars from the United States, Latin America and Europe have produced a considerable body of new work on the history of living standards in Latin America, from pre-colonial times to the present. Originally characterized by a narrow focus on measurement, the field is experiencing a transition toward innovative discussions on how to use anthropometric and other methodologies to shed light on general political, social, and economic historical processes. This transition makes it interesting to bring researchers together for a workshop to share new findings and approaches, and discuss them with the academic community at large.

The workshop features ten original contributions on living standards embracing a broad range of countries, historical periods, and methodological approaches. All papers share a common concern to understand the complex synergies between political and economic structures, productivity, inequality in access to resources, and well being throughout the history of Latin America.

Visit the web address provided below for updated program and abstracts. Please email Amílcar Challu (e-mail address follows) to RSVP.

Organizing Committee: John Coatsworth, Ricardo Salvatore, Amilcar Challu.

PROGRAM
Friday, April 8

2.00-2.30: Welcome
John Coatsworth (Monroe Gutman Professor of Latin American Affairs and Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University)

2.30-4.45: Authoritarianism and Welfare, 1950-2000
J. McGuire: Politics, Policy, and Mortality Decline in Chile, 1960-1999
M. Baltzer*: Did Height Decline, GDP Decline and Height Inequality
Influence the Opening and Closing of Economies? The Case of the Latin American Periphery, 1950-2000
L. Ríos*: An Anthropometric Perspective on Guatemalan History

Saturday, April 9

9.00-10.30: Living Standards in Times of Malthus, 1750-1850
R. Prieto: Climatic Anomalies and Living Standards in South America at the End of the Colonial Period
A. Challu: Colonialism, Insurrection and the Quality of Life: Physical Wellbeing in Mexico Before and After Independence

10.30-12.00: Growth Against Well Being? The 1850-1950 Period
R. Salvatore: Better-off in the Thirties: Composite Indexes of Welfare for Argentina, 1900-1940
M. López-Alonso: Paradoxes of Growth: The Biological Standards of Living of the Mexican Working Classes 1850-1950

12.00-2.00: Lunch

2.00-3.30: Neoliberalism and Public Health in the 1990s
E. Villamor*: Socio-demographic Predictors of Age at Menarche in a Group of Colombian University Women
P. Surkan*: Physical Growth in Low-Income Children in Northeast Brazil

3.30-4.30: The Long-Run Perspective
R. Steckel: Latin American Health in Very Long-Term Perspective

5.00-6.00: Reception