Las rentas inmobiliarias y la propiedad urbana constituían una parte importante de los patrimonios de algunos miembros de las élites madrileñas de finales del siglo XVIII. A lo largo de la centuria las inversiones en bienes urbanos se habían incrementado notablemente, en parte por una recuperación general de las rentas, pero también por el aumento de la demanda derivado del crecimiento de la población. Lo que no está tan claro es el momento en que se inició este proceso ni cuáles fueron los agentes sociales que lo hicieron posible. Sin entrar en matizaciones, aun a riesgo de simplificar en exceso, la dinámica de dicho proceso de transformación ha sido atribuida tradicionalmente a la irrupción en el escenario social de una nueva burguesía con impulsos revolucionarios. En la base de todos los cambios, ya fueran económicos, ya políticos, se ha tendido a colocar a los agentes de dicha clase social. Ellos (los burgueses) forzaron los cambios que llevaron a España por la senda del capitalismo en lo económico y del liberalismo en lo político. Sin embargo, sabemos muy pocas cosas acerca de la formación de esta clase social, de los grupos que la constituyeron o de su capacidad real para protagonizar cambios históricos semejantes.

El fenómeno más importante y significativo de la historia económica mundial en el período comprendido entre las dos guerras es, sin duda, la denominada crisis de 1929.

Las explicaciones acerca de los orígenes y consecuencias de la crisis han originado abundante literatura, sobre todo recientemente, debido, seguro, al interés que encierra el tema por sus repercusiones sobre la sociedad contemporánea, como por el hecho de que las sociedades de hoy están padeciendo otra gran depresión económica, cuya magnitud todavía es difícil de precisar, lo cual lleva a algunos historiadores económicos a prestar atención a la crisis de finales del decenio de 1920 y comienzos de 1930, precedente más próximo del declive económico de la década de 1970.

Aunque, como luego se verá, resulta difícil cuantificar ese hecho, parece indudable que en el siglo XVII la población de la España peninsular en su conjunto creció muy poco o incluso disminuyó. Abonan esa opinión los estudios de demografía local, los trabajos de síntesis que se han hecho hasta ahora, la situación crítica que atravesó la economía española durante esa centuria, los testimonios de los coetáneos y, sobre todo, los datos que tenemos sobre la población en torno a los años de 1600 y de 1700.

Los casi ocho lustros de la era de Franco constituyen una de las etapas fundamentales de la historia contemporánea catalana y española. Y no tanto por su amplitud cronológica como por las importantes transformaciones que cambiaron la fisonomía del país. España, en su conjunto, viviría a partir de finales de los años cincuenta una intensa industrialización, mientras que Cataluña se consolidaría como una sociedad plenamente industrial.

In early modern Castile the Crown authority was played within the political arena having as a mirror the so-called economica (the art of the good government of the household). The king, a prudent father of his subjects, should punish and sometimes pardon the criminals in order to keep the political body balanced. The criminal punishment or pardon should be the end of every lawsuit. Seville in the times of Cervantes offered lots of occasions to develop judicial practices. This article explains how justice was developed within this framework and gives a picture of Ancient Régime justice quite different to the repressive justice depicted by Foucault in his Surveiller et punir.

The essay has as a main aim to analize the decay of Sierra de Cameros transhumant cattle raising, exemplified on the case of Don Mariano Antonio Manso de Velasco. The costs of the livestock itself and the price of pasture in Extremadura were the main reasons for the crisis rather than other factors such as foreign trade could influence. Institutional factors derived from the new liberal regime of 1821, also contributed to this process.

This article deals with the social mobility of private owners under the N(ew) E(conomic) P(olicy) in the Soviet Union during the 1920's. The question addressed is: Was it possible a rapid growth of capitalist stratra under the prevalent social and economic conditions? More specifically, the paper puts to the test the idea that market economy inevitably entails private owners differentiation and the formation of antagonistic social groups from the formerly homogeneous mass of petty commodity producers. A simulation model based on Markov chains was applied and its results show the directions and extent of social differentiation suggesting that had the NEP survive, private owners would not have disintegrated into opposed groups.

The author searches into the reasons for the perpetuation of inefficient institutions. The monastery of Sta. Maria de Montederramo (Orense, Galicia) in the 13th century lets to underline the existence of formal and informal institutions defining agents' choices whose interests are building up in the process of social interaction. Moreover those interests emerge within socio-cultural context, rather than as the outcome of the institutional constreints over a given nature as profit maximazers. The article reviews the classical debate about the Cister. Given the Rule of the Order it is argued that Cistercians pursued the organization of coherent territorial estates, exclusive property rights over the land and own labour force. Working on the case-study, the gap between the theoretical principle of the Order and the specif management and contractual agreements about land tenancy are considered. The conclusion puts forward that monasteries were devices of accumulation because they developed practices of reciprocity, redistribution and identity within the peasant communities and through the organization of personal and social networks with some of the outstanding members of the local community. In the tied web of social and cultural dynamics, the economic patterns were hammered out.

No creo exagerado decir que esta obra de Jiménez Blanco constituye, hoy por hoy, el trabajo más importante sobre la agricultura de Andalucía Oriental en el siglo XIX. Por otra parte, son dignas de destacar sus exhaustivas exposiciones del estado de la cuestión en cada subsector y las pormenorizadas explicaciones sobre la situación y utilización de las fuentes. Esto es particularmente útil en una parcela de la historia de Andalucía, caracterizada por la multiplicación de trabajos de ámbito reducido. Todo ello creo que justifica una nota crítica de los dos volúmenes en que se divide el trabajo, más amplia y detallada que lo que permite una simple recensión.

This article studies the proceedings used by the Spanish public finances to deal with the unpaid taxes during the last decades of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. The connections between the concerned public institutions, and between these and the taxpayers, are analysed using the statements of tax collectors. The great amount of land seized by the State, as a consequence of unpaid taxes, are a sign of the changes that the Spanish rural areas were suffering. This phenomenon became a serious source of conflict and it made evident the important structural problems of the Restauration Administration.

This paper applies modern economic theory to the ownership of enslaved men and women in the labour market context of Santiago, Chile from 1773 to 1810. We calculate the internal rate of return for slaves by gender and age as a way to understand the economic justification of slavery in an urban scenario where free labour was also readily available. Based on archival sources documenting the selling prices for slaves, prevailing wages for free labourers, maintenance costs and life expectancy, we argue that the ownership of enslaved men and women was a consistently profitable activity.

This article aims to analyse the finances of the Coimbra city council from 1557 to 1836. Our objective is to examine the causes of long-term changes in municipal revenue and expenditure, particularly during the extended period of decline that occurred between the mid-17th century and the late 18th century. This study will focus on the composition of revenue and expenditure, as well as on revenue collection mechanisms. We aim to present the empirical data on the revenue and expenditure components that allow us to understand the changes that took place. Finally, we hope to be able to explain the causes that led to significant variations in revenue and expenditure in a dialogue with existing literature. The primary sources used correspond to municipal revenue and expenditure books, supplemented by other sources such as legislation, correspondence and auction books.

This essay considers the literature on the topic of social capital in relation to the economic science, and opens new perspectives of research in this area. This essay starts with a walk through the history of economic thought that has influenced social capital literature. Afterwards, the reader will find a discussion on different perspectives of research that have been followed up to now and some others in relation with the microeconomic foundations of the concept of social capital, and its connexion with economic growth and finance.

In 1833-1874, Spain suffered 0.7 coups per year. By contrast, the Restoration (1874-1923) saw the eradication of successful coups. This can be partially attributed to the turno pacífico, which allowed the main political parties to alternate in office without dragging the military into politics. We suggest, however, that the reduction in coup risk was also associated with a conscious budget policy. This, though, did not rely on increases in total military expenditure (which actually stagnated during most of the Restoration), but on the steady improvement of officers' remunerations and promotions. This strategy was probably detrimental to Spanish military capacity abroad, but was consistent with the objective of keeping the military out of politics.

This article analyses the biological welfare and inequality of the male population of the irrigated area of Valencia between 1859 and 1939. It studies the effects that the agrarian development process had on physical welfare and the relationship between height and access to land ownership. Height data for conscripts in five municipalities constitute the source for the study. The results reveal that there was a growing trend in the evolution of heights in the irrigated area of Valencia at the beginning of agrarian capitalism. Nutritional inequalities can be observed between farmers and farm workers: land owners were taller than landless labourers. However, this biological inequality diminished over the period under study.

During Miguel de Cervantes' lifetime, the Mediterranean World was suffering a transformation in the internal distribution of power, both political and economic. Although the Ottoman fleet was defeated, which established the limits of dominance between the two empires, this did not prevent the entry in this space of the new commercial powers from northern Europe, which changed the trade in the Mediterranean. This article tries to provide a synthesis of this process, of which Cervantes was a direct witness both in his personal life and through the works which have survived to our time.

A strongly rentier mentality prevailed in the Spanish Catholic church during the XVIth and XVIIth centuries. Investments were applied to the acquisition of real estate properties to be rented for long periods of time, or used to grant credits, either private ones (censos consignativos) or public credits (juros). Church institutions finally became during the XVIIth century the main monopolizers of public debt bonds. The advantages granted by the Crown allowed the clergy a propitious position for the acquisition of new bonds by means of speculative operations that were nearly fraudulent. However, the bankruptcy of the Spanish monarchy eventually affected the Church itself, and it placed some institutions in a difficult financial position.