Prados de la Escosura, LeandroUniversidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola de Historia y Ciencias Sociales2015-05-192015-05-192015-05-012341-2542https://hdl.handle.net/10016/20760How has Latin America's wellbeing evolved over time? How does Latin America compare to today's developed countries (OECD, for short)? What explains their differences? These questions are addressed using an historical index of human development. A sustained improvement in wellbeing can be observed since 1870. The absolute gap between OECD and Latin America widened over time, but an incomplete catching up &-largely explained by education- occurred since 1900, but faded away after 1980, as Latin America fell behind the OECD in terms of longevity. Once the first health transition was exhausted, the contribution of life expectancy to human development declined.application/pdfengAtribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 3.0 EspañaLatin AmericaHuman DevelopmentPositive FreedomLife ExpectancyEducationworking paperO15O54I00N36DT/0000001370wp15-04