This paper analizes die determinants of die price life cycle of a slave, dealing particularly with the impact of human capital, both with respect to skills and health. The paper details die source of the sample —including more than two thousand Spanish American slaves of die 18th century— and discusses its reliability, moving on to a descriptive analysis in the geographic and historical context. Later on it looks at die factors influencing price in several types of economic activity.

The distinctive character of the Spanish monarchy all along the modern age was the domination on the main producing zones of silver and mercury in the planet, which provided practically uncontestable a comparative monetary advantage to her, specially during the period of century and a half following the introduction of the silver-standard in the Ming's China, during which the bimetallic relation was extremely favorable for the silver. This allowed the imperial power to rest on an very simple combination of extractive, logistic and financial policies, whose privileged indicator is the market of the mercury, that reconstructs in this work.

El presente artículo pretende mostrar el cambio experimentado durante el período 1760–1860 por las actitudes intelectuales dominantes en relatión con los aspectos sociales más estrechamente conectados con el proceso productive del mercurio en las Minas de Almadén.

En el transcurso de esos cien años fue publicado un cierto número de obras acerca de las actividades desarrolladas en el citado establecimiento minero. Junto a ensayos históricos, técnicos y económicos se redactan otros de carácter médico, moral o religioso. Unidos a la documentatión elaborada por las propias Minas, permiten conocer los des puntos en que aquí nos centraremos: de una parte, el proceso de trabajo y sus consecuencias sociales; de otra, las líneas maestras que presiden el pensamiento de los autores de esa heterogénea masa documental.

In the present work we study the evolution of the prices of the most representative goods of the Buenos Aires market in the decades after independence from the Spanish empire. The paper analyses the evolution of import, export and local prices in Buenos Aires for the first half of the 19th century and intends to contribute to a more accurate estimate of the intense process of price inflation and changes in relative prices that occurred in Buenos Aires during this period. We also aspire to be able to analyse the relationships between the increases in prices and the institutional effects of commercial blockades, the issuance of paper money and changes in the demand for goods that occurred in the commercial interaction of Buenos Aires. An attempt is also made to compare the dynamics of various baskets of goods, allowing us to evaluate the differentiated effects in local, regional and overseas supply and demand. With this in mind we analyse both general price indexes, with their main changes, and also aim to integrate a variety of products in baskets that represent as accurately as possible the diverse demands of the commercial space offered by the Buenos Aires market. Finally, we reexamine the effects of the price variations of the baskets of prices on various social sectors and regions linked to the significant interregional plaza represented by the Buenos Aires market.

Recently, new research has challenged the traditional narrative; Spain did not suffer from a ruler that threatened his subjects’ property with excessive taxes and forced loans. Instead, Spanish economic development was held back by decentralised and non-predatory governance, unable to solve the coordination problems blocking the way to more integrated markets. Through the analysis of the governance and loan portfolios of an ecclesiastical order, this paper examines the extent to which mortgage credit markets were fragmented in early modern Spain. This order not only collected resources that it subsequently lent but also pooled them. Indeed, it developed into a nationally integrated organisation able to offer everything from small loans to farmers to substantial amounts to the king and the Madrid elite.

En este artículo se estudia la demanda de textiles por parte de las families castellanas de la provincia de Palencia entre 1750 y 1850. A partir de un análisis sistemático de inventarios post mortem, se constata un aumento en el consumo de bienes textiles que afectó a todas las capas sociales ubicadas tanto en entornos urbanos como rurales. No obstante, existían una serie de límites al desarrollo de la demanda y del consumo: pervivencia de crisis de subsistencias y mortalidad, lento crecimiento demográfico, fluctuaciones en los niveles de precios agrícolas, integración de los mercados no uniforme, incremento de la masa de indigentes, excesiva concentración de la riqueza, etcetera. La existencia de estos límites incidieron en el resultado final: una revolutión industriosa sin industrialización.

En la historiografía económica sobre la industrializatión vizcaína del último cuarto del siglo XIX, ha dominado hasta fechas muy recientes la creencia en la exportación en gran escala del mineral de hierro local como su causa e instrumento fundamental. Los grandes beneficios obtenidos en esta. actividad por empresarios y propietarios autóctonos, bien por la exploración directa de las minas o por su arrendamiento a explotadores y empresas extranjeras, bien por la participación en el capital y en los beneficios de éstas, habrían jugado un papel determinante en el desarrollo de las modernas siderurgia y marina mercante locales sobre todo, convertiras así en los pilares del proceso industrializador junto a la minería del hierro.

This paper analyses those factors that determined the regional specialization of pepper crop as well as the competitiveness of its industrial product, paprika, in international markets. Thus, it focuses on the relationship between agriculture and food industry. On the agriculture side, it is emphasised the role of cultivators on pepper diffusion in some irrigable areas of Segura river and Caceres valley. The demand expansion favoured crop intensification, provoked significative changes in peasant work organization, and facilitated technological advances in small farms too. On the industrial side, the present article shows the consumption importance in the national market at the end of nineteenth century and the foreign trade in the early twentieth century. In addition, it presents how Spanish exporters became to control the international market in the 1910's in conflict with Hungarian paprika. The role of industrial and commercial firms was decisive in paprika difussion in international markets enhancing its quality and standarization. Finally, the importance of marketing in the commercialization throughout 1920's and 1930's preventing paprika adulteration is reported.

The article focuses on an analysis of the evolution of tax burden in the Peruvian region between 1691 and 1790 and its relationship with local revolts. Tax income and tax burden have been calculated on the basis of data collected from Cajas Reales (colonial tax revenue offices) and an estimate of the product. XVIII Century revolts appear to be consequence of the continuous increase in the tax burden.

Technological changes gave Cuba one of the most technically advanced cane sugar industries in the world in the first part of this century. In this paper, we show quantitatively that production techniques in sugar manufacturing, as in many other processing industries, underwent enormous increases in their optimal scales due to the adoption of continuous-processing technologies and mass production. These same continuous-processing technologies were those which heralded the managerial revolution à la Chandler. In Cuba, the large turn-of-the-century sugar enterprise, to take a global perspective, was not the latifundio of antiquity; it was an element of the large industrial enterprise of the twentieth century, and it was a mark of global participation and industrial leadership in the newly transformed techniques of sugar manufacture.

The analyse of the 1784 «Censo de Manufacturas» represents a sound attempt at understanding die catalonian manufacturing industry at the end of die XVIIIth Century. This Census offers not only a global picture of the industrials activities, but also the spatial location of die main industrial towns. In addition, this document shows diferences in the productive infrastructure use die labour force employed, the raw materials transformed and the products obtained for productive units. From these I can corroborate that the old guilds were desintegrating. Moreover, a general perspective is offered, thus completing previous studies about local activities.

Hace ciento cincuenta años, el 17 de febrero de 1839, se inauguraba la primera Caja de Ahorros de España, la Caja de Madrid. Como entidad independiente, la Caja aportaría sus recursos al funcionamiento de una institutión madrileoa, el Monte de Piedad, nacido a comienzos del siglo xviii, con la que terminaría fusionándose en 1869.

Es un placer para mí tener que responder a Leandro Prados de la Escosura. Su interés y los frecuentes comentarios críticos sobre mis trabajos de historia agrícola han sido siempre un estímulo para mí y por ello bien recibidos. Contestaré mejor sus últimas observaciones sobre mi artículo «La producción agraria y el consumo español en el siglo xix», en el orden en que fueron presentadas.

El objetivo de este artículo es el de analizar y exponer los rasgos básicos que caracterizaron la organizatión y evolución de la manufactura preindustrial de este núcleo del prelitoral catalán (Esparreguera y Olesa de Mont-serrat), dedicado a la elaboratión de tejidos de lana.

This article provides an initial (partial) estimate of silver quantities held within China around mid-18th century, utilising archival evidence related to wealth confiscations. Better future estimates for overall Chinese silver holdings could also facilitate more accurate estimation of Chinese silver (legal plus illegal) imports. Similar analyses for other world regions could eventually yield estimates for global silver stock holdings, useful in turn for improving global silver mining and trade flow estimates. Extensive contraband silver mining and silver trade are known to have escaped official recordation, by definition. If methodologies suggested herein prove successful, then parallel non-silver-trade-good estimates could follow. Current exclusive focus upon production and trade flows should be reevaluated in the context of linkages with accumulations of goods (wealth components). Economic history could someday provide a prominent stage for the historical study of wealth holdings, thereby furnishing context for increasing wealth concentrations observable worldwide today.

This article surveys the situation of the shipping cartels (conferences) which regulated transatlantic migrant transport from the European Continent to the United States. The focus of the article is to identify the internal and external pressures underlying these agreements and the strategies employed to neutralize these pressures. The author reaches the conclusion that a pool agreement was essential for the effectiveness of the Conference, which was both a means of horizontal integration regulating the competition between shipping companies and a means of vertical integration to gain control over the transatlantic migrant agent network selling the ocean passage tickets. The author also correlates the efficiency of the agreements with steerage fares and migration costs.

This research note discusses the accuracy of the main sources used to study the foreign sector during the export-led growth process in Chile. Chilean foreign trade statistics are available for the period under analysis (1850-1930) and offered a good overview of products exported and imported. Bilateral trade data are also available providing information of exports and imports by origin and destiny. Although more research is needed on trade prices, we conclude that Chilean statistics are reliable and provide a way for understanding the export-led growth in Chile and the trade performance of the Chilean partners.

This paper revisits the political economy during Spanish rule in America by reappraising the allegedly positive impact that intra-imperial transfers (situados) had on the Caribbean economy. It raises concerns concerning categories such as bargaining and absolutism and their accuracy in accounting for the nature of Spanish imperial rule. Three main findings are reported. Firstly, it seems inaccurate to hold that all remittances were injected into the economy with positive effects. Liquidity apparently provoked a real estate bubble. Secondly, the local market was not necessarily sensitive to the arrival of bullion. Finally, jurisdictional fragmentation allowed the king to issue debt in a disorderly fashion and with no constraints, and local officials and groups of interests to behave as free riders.

This article explores the behavior of exchange rates in Spain during the 18th century. We analyze the exchange rates quoted in London on three Spanish cities between 1699 and 1826. After a brief review of how the Spanish monetary system worked and how exchange rates were determined, we assess to which extent the exchange rate responded to market fundamentals by testing two theoretical models of exchange rate determination. The results suggest that purchasing power parity held during the 18th century, with the exchange rate tracking quite closely the behavior of inflation differentials. Deviations from PPP appeared at the end of the century, due mostly to changes in the real exchange rate caused by the bilateral trade between Spain and Great Britain and, maybe, due to productivity differentials.