Starting from the quantitative reconstruction of revenues and expenses of the Royal Treasury in the Yucatan province during the period 1801-1821, the paper shows the transition from an unbalanced regional fiscal structure that depended on colonial transfers (situados) to offset the deficit, to one self-sufficient structure in the context of the Independence War and the liberalism of the Cortes de Cadiz. An autonomy based on the indigenous capitation tax and the fiscal control of foreign trade that was made in the ports of the Yucatan Peninsula.

This article examines the marketing and distribution of foreign fabric, predominantly English, in the northern sub-plateau of Spain at the beginning of the 18th century using information from a fiscal source. The official tax record used in this study was a specific and special tax levied on cloth imported from countries with which Spain was at war. The details of this tax shed more light on a hotly debated topic with respect to transport and networks in modern Spain and make it possible to analyze and quantify the physical volume as well as the value and the destination of textiles.

Estar en condiciones de poder presentar un panorama general de la Extremadura moderna exige, entre otras cuestiones prioritarias, reconstruir las principales macromagnitudes económicas. Sin embargo, los estudios de la producción agrícola y pecuaria, de la renta de la tierra y de los precios, indispensables en las investigaciones sobre el Antiguo Régimen, presentan especiales dificultades en nuestra región, debido al modo habitual de explotar los derechos decimales, a la compleja realidad territorial —heterogénea y diversa—, a las destrucciones de partes sustantivas de importantes archivos y a la práctica inexistencia de determinados tipos de fuentes. Se requerirán, por consiguiente, años y un gran esfuerzo investigador antes de estar en condiciones de ofrecer una información serial de las principales variables económicas, tan abundante y fiable como de la que ya se dispone para algunas regiones españolas.

A common view in the Spanish population history has been to show the variety of its regional demographies. In this regional setting the population of Catalonia has been characterized by its early connection between economic and social modernization and demographical change. This article aims to evaluate these connections between economic and demographical dynamics in Catalonia in the pre-industrial era (1600–1850). Series of vital events and prices from a sample of Catalan villages have been collected and demographical responses to short run fluctuations in standards of living evaluated through lag time series models. The main results show: a) Levels of mortality responses to fluctuations in standards of living are higher than levels of fertility throughout two and a half centuries, b) Nuptiality, in the XVIII th century, and fertility, in the first half of XIX th century, are the demographical mechanisms applied by the Catalan population in order to avoid tensions between population and resources during the process of economic growth.

This article aims to analyze the territorial taxes in the province of Alicante during the Década Moderada (1844–1854). Besides a structural analysis of the territorial taxes —quota and its charges—, the sharing out of taxes among the villages of the province, as well as the individual share of taxpayers in the town of Alicante and its province will be studied. Reference to the objections from villages and individuals to the sharing out effected by the provincial and local oligarchy is therefore necessary in order to understand the political and social implications of the new tax. Such objections show the extent to which the sharing out was unfair and the resistance offered towards the taxes, which resulted in high levels of tax evasion.

The aim of this contribution is the presentation of the political conflicts between the Archbishop of Lima, Toribio Alfonso de Mogrovejo (1538–1606), together with his faithful collaborator the parish priest Alonso de Huerta, and the cathedral chapter. Though the chapter was a sort of senate or permanent council of the diocese clergy, it by no means acted as an institution involved in the missionary commitments of Archbishop Mogrovejo. On the contrary, its members rallied around against what they considered to be a violation of their economic privileges, and on several instances they denounced the Archbishop, as well as the parish priest Alonso de Huerta, arguing that they intruded in the internal rules of the chapter.

Una de las posibles líneas de investigación en torno al tema de la primera industrialización es la del proceso de transformación de las manufacturas privilegiadas del siglo XVIII, herederas de los talleres gremiales, pero sin apenas otras modificaciones que las puramente cuantitativas, en modernas fábricas vinculadas ya a un contexto de producción industrial. Un proceso del que desconocemos casi todo, por la simple razón de que estas manufacturas no sirvieron comúnmente de instrumento de cambio, que habría de producirse desde perspectivas mucho más modestas. Sólo un ejemplo: de las cuatro manufacturas privilegiadas que existían en La Coruña a principios del siglo XIX (sombrerería, lona y jarcia, mantelería y tabacos), únicamente esta última superó la crisis del Antiguo Régimen y, tras un período de acomodación, terminó por convertirse en una fábrica moderna.

Diversas investigaciones sobre el Banco de España nos han permitido conocer la evolución de sus activos y pasivos, las vicisitudes de su vinculación con el Tesoro, su expansión por provincias o la favorable cotización de sus acciones, pero no sabemos quiénes eran los que se veían principalmente beneficiados por esto último, es decir, nos es prácticamente desconocido el nombre de los mayores accionistas, por más que haya referencias como la que encabeza este artículo, de lo bien que les iba a tales accionistas; otros contemporáneos se atrevieron a recargar aún más las tintas o a cuantificar suculentos beneficios.

The reform of the craft guild system in Spain, encouraged by the enlightened reformism of the second half of the eighteenth century, reached one of its most radical moments with the abolition of the Guild of Silk Throwsters in 1793. In this essay we look into the effects and reactions that this measure unleashed inside the important silk sector in the city of Valencia. Spinning, whose last and most skilled stage was throwing, had become a bottle-neck which put in jeopardy the future of an economic activity of vital importance for the urban population and economy. The abolition of this guild had the twofold effect of bringing to light the deep-seated troubles which were plaguing work organization in spinning, and disclosing the complex position of merchant capital in the silk trade. Valencian commercial bourgeoisie did not get involved in the much-needed reconversion of spinning. This is an essential factor to explain the failure of all the measures designed to provide the mills with cheap, good-quality yarn in large quantities. Furthermore, the absence of a restructuring of spinning is one of the reasons which accounts for the fact that the commercial bourgeoisie itself ended up maintaining a frontal opposition to this anti-guild decree issued by the Royal Court.

The aim of this paper is to analyse and compare the structure of rural properties of three houses of mendicants in Castile during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Analysing these three case studies we can gain a wide chronological view to show how the mendicants evolved to adapt to the feudal structures. We can also compare their role as members of the dominant class with that of other feudal lords, specially with other ecclesiastical institutions of previous foundation.

Using the regional distribution of the Spanish residents patents from 1882 to 1935, the paper shows important divergences in the technology level of the Spanish regions. Those with the highest technology level were: Cataluña, Madrid, País Vasco and Valencia. The second group was formed by: Cantabria, Baleares, Aragón, La Rioja, Navarra and Asturias. Finally, the regions with the lowest technology level were: Murcia, Andalucía, Canarias, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Galicia and Extremadura. Nevertheless, the evolution of patents per capita ratio shows that while some regions improved during this period, others got backwards relative to the rest of Spain. The distribution of patents by economic sectors shows a more complete picture of the technological development of the regions: it shows the sectors in which regions specialized and those in which they achieved technical advantages.

This paper is concerned with recent development of Economic History in Uruguay. It focuses on its institutional features as well as on the prevailing theoretical and methodological approaches and research topics. A foundational period 1960–1985 is shortly reviewed. Recent development is thereafter discussed and characterised as one of dispersion, re-foundation and specialisation. The paper concludes that, notwithstanding Economic History loosed its central place and weight among the social sciences, the discipline has gone through a process of institutional and organisational strengthening. This embraces specialised graduate education, fluent relationships to the international community and an attempt to combine historical knowledge with rigorous treatment of theory and method. On this basis, the production of more and better facts has been increasing and, hopefully, the discipline may regain an outstanding place in academic life.

The important role of Chinese demand for silver in stimulating worldwide silver-mining and shaping the first truly global trading system has become commonly recognised in the world history scholarship. The commercial dynamism of China during the 16th-19th centuries was integrally related to the importation of foreign silver, initially from Japan but principally from Latin America. Yet the significance of imports of Latin American silver for the Chinese economy changed substantially over these three centuries in tandem with the rhythms of China's domestic economy as well as the global trading system. This article traces these changes, including the adoption of a new standard money of account—the yuan—derived from the Spanish silver peso coin.

Using the Penn World Table, the CEPAL statistics and the OxLAD data base for the period 1950–2000, and considering a sample of 18 Latin American countries, this paper tries to test for convergence within the region. The results from a panel data approach only allow us to speak about convergence in a conditional sense. In fact, one of the main factors behind both economic growth and the catching up process in the region is the level of human capital. This variable has been constructed using Principal Components methodology and taking into consideration primary and secondary school enrolment ratios, the number of inhabitants per doctor, life expectancy, the infant mortality rate and the dependency rate.

This paper presents the course taken by the Cuban economy from the early twentieth century until the outbreak of the Revolution, seen from the perspective of what happened in the stock market. I have therefore prepared an index of Havana Stock Exchange listings which shows strong dependence on what happened in the sugar market, particularly in sugar exports. However, my research highlights the weakness of this institution, conceived more as an instrument of speculative enrichment rather than one of financing, the evolution of which reveals the fragility of the Cuban economy and particularly the poor development of its capital markets.

In the 1940s, when the governor of Puerto Rico was still appointed by the U.S. president, a large state-owned enterprise (SOE) sector was established. Later, in 1948-1950, the island's first elected government privatised these SOEs. This paper documents both the creation of the SOE sector and its privatisation, and analyses the role played by ideology, political interests and economic concerns in the decision to privatise. Whereas ideological factors might have played a significant role in the building of the SOE sector, the privatisation process was driven by economic factors. In the cement sector, the competing private firm was more efficient and the SOEs in other sectors with no private competitors in the island showed permanent losses.

Big sheep owners played a key role in nomadic sheeprearing in the Spanish region around Soria during the xvth. and xvith. centuries. By using the volume of wool sales, the author compares the size of their flocks with those of other middle and small owners in the region and analyzes the owners' sociopolitical profile, in order to qualify traditional hypotheses about the social basis of the «Mesta» and its evolution during the xvith. century. Lastly, some aspects of the management of sheeprearing enterprises are examined, and its factors identified. In particular, the analyses focuses on those aspects of sheeprearing that made big enterprises more profitable than small ones.

Con motivo de la elaboratión de mi tesis doctoral, me vi obligado, dada la época que la misma abarca —primera mitad del siglo XVII— a aplicar, bastante a menudo, el premio de la plata a las valoraciones de bienes reflejadas en moneda de vellón en los inventarios.

La documentatión no siempre precisa el premio vigente en los momentos del aprecio. Por ello, en ausencia de este dato, hube de recurrir a una fuente complementaria para salvar los problemas de bimetalismo y consideré oportuno utilizar, con este motivo, las tablas elaboradas por Hamilton en dos de sus obras capitales, corroborando, a través del trabajo, la coincidencia entre las mencionadas tablas de Hamilton y los premios señalados en la documentatión notarial, como puede comprobarse en el cuadro y la gráfica adjunta.

La formación y crecimiento de las ciudades industriales en el siglo xix es un fenómeno característico de la transformación capitalista iniciada en algunos países de Europa. La transición al sistema fabril creaba en este período las condiciones que iban a impulsar el rápido desarrollo de las industrias urbanas. La mayor capacidad de expansión de los sectores secundario y terciario de la economía había, a partir de entonces, de alterar las pautas reguladoras del tamaño de las poblaciones, así como la distribución de la actividad entre los distintos sectores productivos. Este es un proceso controvertido que, a largo plazo, sólo podía sustentarse por los aumentos de la productividad agraria que permitiesen alimentar las crecientes proporciones de población integradas en los sectores urbanos. No obstante, desde algunas perspectivas, como la sostenida por el modelo de protoindustrialización, se ha argumentado que en el período de formación de las ciudades industriales no fueron tanto excedentes de población agraria los que integraron el crecimiento demográfico urbano, como la movilización del trabajo previamente ocupado en las manufacturas rurales. A partir del grado de detalle que permite el estudio de un ejemplo concreto, se tratará, a continuación, de poner de relieve los orígenes de la transformación industrial en una ciudad catalana, Sabadell, así como las bases de su crecimiento demográfico.

Ha transcurrido casi un siglo desde la publicación de la famosa obra de Arnold Toynbee, Lectures on the Industrial Revolution (1884). Desde entonces, historiadores de todas las escuelas han llegado a la conclusión de que la Revolución Industrial en Gran Bretaña constituyó un nuevo punto de partida en la historia de la humanidad, un hecho de tanta importancia para la vida cotidiana que puede compararse con la aparición del monoteísmo o con el desarrollo del lenguaje. De este modo, ha surgido una extensa literatura escrita por historiadores, economistas y sociólogos, ingleses y extranjeros, tanto de izquierdas como de derechas, que trata de sus diversos aspectos. Sin embargo, los expertos no se han puesto de acuerdo sobre los problemas fundamentales. En primer lugar se encuentra la mera cuestión de la definición: ¿qué fue exactamente la Revolución Industrial? De los muchos intentos que se han efectuado para resumir lo que supuso la Revolución Industrial, el de Perkin es quizá el más elocuente. En sus propias palabras, fue «una revolución en el acceso de los hombres a los medios de vida, en el control de su entorno ecológico, en su capacidad de escapar de la tiranía y de la mezquindad de la naturaleza (…) abrió el camino a los hombres para completar el dominio de su entorno físico, sin la ineludible necesidad de explotarse unos a otros» (Perkin, 1969, pp. 3–5). En Gran Bretaña cambiaron muchas cosas, y no solamente la manera en que se producían los bienes y servicios. Se transformó la naturaleza de la familia y del hogar, el status de las mujeres y los niños, el papel de la Iglesia, cómo las personas elegían a los gobernantes y mantenían a los pobres, lo que sabían acerca del mundo y lo que querían saber. El descubrimiento de cómo estas transformaciones no económicas afectaron y se vieron afectadas por el cambio económico es un proyecto continuo La revolución fue, en frase irresistible de Perkin, «algo más que una Revolución Industrial». Al centrarnos en la economía aislamos sólo una parte, aunque fundamental, de la modernizatión de Gran Bretaña.