Real Wages Adjusted by Purchasing Power Parity: Capital Cities of the Southern Cone, c. 1890–1940

Abstract This paper analyses living standards in the capital cities of southern Latin America during the First Globalisation and the post-export-led period. It examines whether well-being in these cities – relative to London – improved and whether the gap in living standards between these cities narrowed or persisted. To address these questions, we constructed a new series of purchasing power parity (PPP) converters to adjust real wages and analyse their evolution in comparison to London. The findings highlight two key points: first, relative living standards in Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Santiago de Chile were higher in the pre-World War I period than in the post-export-led era, during which real wages significantly declined, falling well below those of London; second, notable disparities in real wages persisted among the cities of the Southern Cone.