The Ports of Northern Chile: A Mining History in Long-run Perspective, 1880-20021

The existence of mining sources and the necessity of a connection between suppliers and demander's (in national and international markets), lead that some places play an important role managing their trade movement. In that case, seaport plays an important role due the importance of the sea trade in that kind of commodities (and the geographical characteristics). Their live is extremely joined with the evolution of the product cycle and, only a successful diversification attempts could overcome it, and get a certain regional development (the type of exports varies but role of the seaport doesn’t change). The Chilean case in the long term (specifically the north mining provinces) allow us to observe the evolution of the movement of an important set of seaports during the effects of the Nitrate era, the Cooper era, the evolution of the changing trade policy, the implementation of the Import Substitution policy liked with the industry promotion, also in the north, and the technological change in sea trade and in the mining production. Also, we could analyse the evolution of the population in a part of that seaports, and some industrial magnitudes in that regions. I want to focuses in the description of the goods movement in the seaports of North-Chile (the coasting trade in both directions, in weight and value, the imports and also the exports), during 1880 – 2002, and to test the impact of a sort of different variables that could affect their evolution and the development of the regional economy (commodities price, trade policies, regional industrialization, population or trade diversification).