This increasingly powerful liberal Peruvian plutocracy soon…

This increasingly powerful liberal Peruvian plutocracy soon succeeds in reorienting the country's trade policy away from the previous nationalist and protectionist era toward export-led growth and low tariffs.

Capital investment derived from the guano boom and abroad flow into the export sector, particularly sugar, cotton, and nitrate production.

The coast now becomes the most economically dynamic region of the country, modernizing at a pace that outstrips the Sierra

Coastal export-led growth not only intensifies the uneven and dualist nature of Peruvian development, but subjects the economy to the vicissitudes of world trade.

Between 1840 and 1875, the value of exports surges from six million pesos to almost thirty-two million, and imports go from four to twenty-four million pesos.

On the face of it, the liberal export model, based on guano, pulls Peru out of its post-independence economic stagnation and seems dramatically successful.

However, while great fortunes are accruing to the new coastal plutocracy, little thought is given to closing the historical inequalities of wealth and income or to fostering a national market for incipient home manufacturing that might created the foundation for a more diversified and truly long-term economic de-velopment.