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Dissertation Information for Juliette Levy

NAME:
- Juliette Levy

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- University of California, Los Angeles (USA) (2003)

ADVISORS:
- William R. Summerhill
- Naomi Lamoreaux

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Kenneth L. Sokoloff
- Eric Van Young

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: Yucatan's arrested development: Social networks and credit markets in Merida, 1850--1899

Abstract: This dissertation analyzed the effects of economic inequality and concentration through the development and social structure of Mérida's mortgage market. This dissertation argues that the internal dynamics of Yucatan's agricultural export boom in the late nineteenth century are central to the arrested development of the region, and to this end I study how social relations at the local level shaped the development and the history of this regional economy. I analyze how Yucatan's mortgage market developed during this period in the absence of formal financial institutions, and how notaries contributed to this development. I focus specifically on credit markets because they are an essential foundation for economic growth as well as a central mechanism of wealth redistribution. The dissertation reveals how the development of the credit market was shaped by structure of the local society, by focusing on the role played by landed wealth, social connections, reputation, and gender in the development of the local mortgage market.

The main source for this work are debt contracts recorded by notaries in Mérida, housed in the Archivo de Notarias de Yucatán and the Archivo General del Estado de Yucatán . I worked with all the existing and surviving notarial ledgers, from which I recorded all mortgage transactions in ten and five year intervals between 1850 and 1895. With this set of contracts I recreated the mortgage market of Mérida. I also recorded and worked with all other contracts recorded by the Mérida notaries, including sale contracts and land deeds, compiling a unique register of approximately five thousand contracts. In addition to the notarial contracts, I used probate records and debt default litigation from civil court documents, also at the Archivo General del Estado de Yucatán . These court cases and substantiating documents provided a rich source with which to follow the relationships observed in the notarial ledgers and reveal the inequality that permeated this economy.

MPACT Scores for Juliette Levy

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-08-13 15:30:36

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Students under Juliette Levy

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None