Suspended in 2025/26
EH452 Half Unit
Latin American Development and Economic History
This information is for the 2025/26 session.
Course Convenor
Dr Alejandra Irigoin
Availability
This course is available on the MSc in Economic History, MSc in Economic History (Research), MSc in Empires, Colonialism and Globalisation, MSc in Financial History, MSc in Global Economic History, MSc in History of International Relations, MSc in International and World History (LSE & Columbia), MSc in Political Economy of Late Development and MSc in Theory and History of International Relations. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process.
How to apply: All Economic History courses are controlled access and capped. Priority will be given to students for whom the course is within their programme regulations.
All course choices submitted before the deadline will be considered. It is advisable that students submit a statement in support of their course choices as these will be used to allocate places where a course is oversubscribed.
Deadline for application: First round offers will be sent on Monday 29 September 2025. Students who submit their course choices after the deadline and students wishing to take an Economic History course as an outside option will be waitlisted initially and informed by Wednesday 1 October 2025 whether they have been successful.
Once an offer has been sent, you have 48 hours to accept it before it times out. Once an offer has timed out, it will be re-allocated to someone on the waitlist. In all cases, it is strongly advised that you have an alternative course choice as a back-up in case you are unable to secure your first choice.
For queries contact: If you have any questions, please contact the MSc Programmes Officer (o.harrison1@lse.ac.uk) A list of all taught master's courses in this Department are listed on LSE's course guide webpages. Guidance on how to apply to individual controlled access courses can also be found on LSE for You.
This course has a limited number of places (it is controlled access). In prevvious years we have been able to provide places for all students that apply, but that may not continue to be the case.
Course content
The course will consider some of the major topics in the development and economic history of Latin America. The topics to be explored will be the role of geography, the environment and factor endowments, the role of institutions and policies, problems of taxation, spending and representation in the capacities of the state and constitutional and political developments in the 19th and 20th century, the protracted character of Latin America’s inequality, the ‘curse’ from natural resources dependence, the macroeconomics of industrialization and the political economic nature of Latin American populism. Using reciprocal comparisons with the US, South East Asia, between Latin American countries, and across time the course will revisit the current interpretations of Latin American development in the long run and will frame the analysis of particular issues of policy-making of the present into the economic historical context.
Teaching
20 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.
This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.
Formative assessment
Students are required to write one essay or equivalent pieces of written work.
Indicative reading
V. Bulmer-Thomas, V (2014) The economic history of Latin America since independence 2nd ed Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. S. Edwards, 2010. Left behind: Latin America and the false promise of populism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. P. Franko, 2007. The puzzle of Latin American economic development. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. JL. Gallup, (2003) Is geography destiny?: lessons from Latin America Latin American development forum. Washington, DC, World Bank. Stein, Ernesto, Mariano Tommasi, Carlos G. Scartascini, and Pablo T. Spiller. 2008. Policymaking in Latin America: how politics shapes policies. Washington, D.C.: Inter-American Development Bank. Ocampo, JA & Ross, J (2011), The Oxford Handbook od Latin American economics (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Bertola, L & Ocampo, JA (2012), The Economic Development of Latin America since Independence (Oxford, Oxford University Press); Scartascini, Stein, GC & Tommasi, M (2010), How democracy Works: political institutions, actors and arenas in Latin American policy making (Washington DC IADB); CH Blake, (2007) Politics in Latin America 2nd edition (Houghton Mifflin Company). V. Bulmer-Thomas, JH, Coatsworth, and R. Cortés Conde, (2006) The Cambridge economic history of Latin America Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Vol. I & I; AA.VV (2003) Inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean. Breaking with history? (Washington IRDB); Edwards, Esquivel, G & Marquez, G (2007) The Decline of Latin American Economics: growth, institutions and crises (Chicago University of Chicago)
Assessment
Exam (100%), duration: 120 Minutes in the Spring exam period
Key facts
Department: Economic History
Course Study Period: Winter Term
Unit value: Half unit
FHEQ Level: Level 7
CEFR Level: Null
Total students 2024/25: Unavailable
Average class size 2024/25: Unavailable
Controlled access 2024/25: NoCourse selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.