Household Consumption Surveys and Latin American Developmentalism: A Study on Argentina, Brazil, and Chile in the 1960s

In the 1960s, most Latin American countries launched their first household consumption and budget surveys. Although these countries already had national statistical institutes in charge of recollecting data on wages, productivity, demographics, employment, and other social and economic indicators, household expenditure patterns became more relevant after 1960. Two main causes explained the new interest in consumption. On the one hand, governments concerned with increasing inflationary pressures and expanding the domestic market demanded more detailed data about consumption patterns to understand their impact on macroeconomics. On the other hand, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean fostered household consumption surveys in the region, offering technical help to local governments and promoting experts’ training and scientific exchanges.

As a result of these efforts in data recollection, we have large datasets covering household consumption in different Latin American cities. This data provides information on consumer behavior according to income, gender, age; access to durable goods; savings; and consumption of basic goods (food, energy, housing). Because most of these surveys were discontinued, they do not allow us to build time series and analyze the evolution of the indicators—something that would only start to be possible during the 1980s. However, they do offer relevant information to understand consumption changes during the developmental years. This paper aims to analyze the 1960s consumer surveys from Argentina, Brazil, and Chile and show how they can help us better understand the transformations of capitalism in Latin America during the developmental era.