had a far higher standard of living than actually prevailed at that time. According to João de Scantimburgo, what "hindered the political, social and economical progress of Brazil was the First Republic [that began at the end of 1889], and its consequences stretched to the future". The first Republican Government's disastrous financial policy caused an economic stagnation that lasted from 1890 up to 1930. The Empire of Brazil had a GDP almost 40% higher than the one of Argentina in 1890 ($11 billion compared to $7 billion in 1990 US dollars). By 1913, Argentina had the fourth greatest economy in the world, a GDP per capita equal to Germany and the Low Countries and higher than Spain, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland and its GDP was 31% higher than Brazil's ($29 billion compared to $20 billion). The Brazilian economy would reach the Argentine economy only in the 1940s, more than 50 years after the end of the monarchy. Agriculture Agriculture held an extremely important role in Brazil under the Empire: 80% of the labor force was dedicated to the primary sector, 13% to tertiary sector and 7% to the secondary sector. In the rural area of the country, agriculture was done by the producers themselves (that is, without the use of slaves), supplying the local market. In the north and northeast regions cotton was cultivated, and small-to-medium-sized farms produced food for subsistence and for local markets. The great distances raised the cost of the transport, coupled with the taxes for interprovincial transit of goods, considerably restricted the capacity of distribution by the producers of the sectors related to the domestic market. In the southeastern region the coffee production that at the beginning of independent Brazil amounted to only 3% of exports started to become more important for the Brazilian economy with each decade that passed, mainly because of extraordinary increase of consumers in the international market. The coffee farms were practically self-sustaining: they did not produce only coffee, but also food and clothes for the slaves, preventing the emergence of economic sectors to serve those markets. However, the suppression of the importation of slaves in 1850 (and the consequent rise in the price of slaves) compelled the producers to focus in the maintenance of manpower, to the detriment of self-sustainability. They sought means to limit the rising costs of production. To remain competitive in the international market, agricultural producers modernized the