As Estatísticas de Receitas e Despesas do Governo do Império do Brasil: uma proposta de sistematização^♦

Abstract

The study of the economic, political, and social history of the Brazilian Empire often involves examination of the statistics of revenues and expenditures of the central government in the period. Lamentably, the main sources of financial data used in the specialized literature suffer from considerable discrepancies and, at times, inconsistencies. For instance, differences in figures for imperial government revenues which, depending on the source, exceed 50% are not uncommon. Starting from primary statistics published in the Balanços da Receita e Despesa do Império, the present article performs a number of adjustments in order to provide, in the end, a series of the imperial finances which is more consistent temporally.

Keywords:
Brazilian empire; Public finances; Statistics; Revised series