New estimates of Spain's current-account balance with the «Indies» add new perspectives to the recent debate on the aims and results of Spanish commercial policy. At the height of «comercio libre» in 1784–92, Spain's private commercial interests appear to have drawn larger financial returns from the Indies than did their British counterparts from wider colonial engagement. On this as on other scores, by the eve of the French wars the Spanish empire appears to have become a sounder economic proposition than might be inferred from recent pessimistic views. The empire's subsequent demise may have involved a greater degree of geographical and dynastic accident than is seemingly apparent.

In this note, we present a new point of view of how financial markets worked in nineteenth century in Spain, focussing on die price of money mobility, which is founded on the price of domestic bills of exchange on eight days' sight We reveal the source, then the conceptual framework in the use of the course of the exchange as the price of money mobility. Finally, we present a brief analysis of the course of the exchanges in Barcelona. Some conclusions are pointed out: the price of money mobility is a pivotal concept, since there is no doubt it had to have significant effects over both financial and real economy. High volatility of exchanges affects the financial economy while high values of them affects the real economy.

Based on anthropometric data and descriptive information contained in the records of the Rio de Janeiro city jail (Casa de Detenção), this paper explores patterns of change in living conditions during the nineteenth century. The research shows that there were significant changes in the heights of prisoners over time and according to race and nationality.Most importantly, heights of Brazilian-born slaves declined for the cohorts born in the 1830s through the beginning of the 1860s. In addition, differences in heights for natives of the city of Rio de Janeiro and for other Brazilian prisoners provide evidence of an «urban penalty» in stature during this period. Poor nutrition, the high cost of food and shelter, the movement of some slaves out of the city and into plantation work after 1850, and urban epidemics are assessed as the factors influencing trends in prisoner heights. Throughout the analysis, height trends discovered in Rio de Janeiro are placed in international comparative perspective.

La España del siglo xix ha sido calificada, en su aspecto económico, como «rezagada con respecto a la mayoría de las naciones occidentales», aunque alejada «igualmente de aquellas otras que no han iniciado su industrialización hasta muy entrada la centuria actual». Nos encontramos, pues, ante un caso intermedio, en el que la aparición de iniciativas de carácter moderno no se vio acompañada por su desarrollo a un nivel comparable con el de los países pioneros de la industrialización.

This paper exposes the main issues involved in the development of a new and authentic Spain Consumer Price Index for the period of 1830 to 1936. The different sections in which it is arranged are focused on defining the field of study and scope to be analyzed, the sources and methodology used, as well as the similarities and differences in respect of other currently available indexes. It also contains a first and brief analysis of the results. The most outstanding characteristic of the new CPI from a long term perspective is its high stability, only once broken in a significant way during the 1914–1920 years, under the influence of World War I. The yearly growth rate for the whole of this period did not even reach 1 per cent, even though there was a change of level observed during the noted brief inflationary spike.

This article analyses the evolution of nutritional inequality in Spain among cohorts born between 1840 and 1964. With male height data (N = 358,253), the secular trend of biological well-being and intergenerational anthropometric inequalities are studied based on the coefficient of variation, height percentiles and socioeconomic categories (students, literate non-students and illiterate). The results reveal that the nutritional inequalities were very large in the mid-19th century. Anthropometric inequalities diminished among those born between 1880 and 1919 and increased again, although only moderately, from the cohorts of the 1920s. From the 1930s there was a cycle of sustained increase in height. Despite nutritional improvement, the data suggest that nutritional inequalities increased during the Franco regime, affecting the low-income population segments particularly.

The statistical accuracy of Historical Foreign Trade Sources has been stated by Federico and Tena (1991) and Tena (1985, 19991 y 1992). This article follows his works in the most suspect field: geographical distribution. We have use Latin American Coal Trade Data among 1908–1930. Most international trade, considering weight, was coal trade; meanwhile it is an ideal product to isolate geographical effects. Statistical disagreements persistence makes us to think this is not a random phenomenon. We have specified an econometric model based on distance. Results show that including geography we can understand statistical disagreements. As a consequence Latin American Sources appear reasonably accurate, considering its geographical pattern.

This article studies inequality in Buenos Aires from the late colonial period to the beginning of the belle époque through series of prices based on primary sources. This enables a comparison of the evolution of land prices and wages in order to estimate the functional income distribution among workers and proprietors. The evolution of livestock prices is assessed as well to capture a more complete image of capital income, due to the importance of cattle raising for the economy of Buenos Aires. The outcome reveals an increasing inequality since the dawn of the cattle-farming boom at the beginning of the independent era.

In this essay is presented an estimation of a cost of living index in Spain for the period 1861–1936, based on the reconstruction of series of prices for twelve Spanish provinces. The author describes the quantitative process, detailing the nature and origin of the sources, the goods selected and the budget criteria. Although die results do not modify our knowledge about the dynamics of the Spanish economy, they suggest a new reading intensity of subsistence crisis in the second half of ninenteenth century.

Large historical problems are stimulating to debate but difficult to specify and answer in ways that might carry forward our long-standing discourses in global economic history. The papers which form the basis of our essay deal with a meta question and are focused upon the economic consequences (the costs and benefits) for those European societies most actively involved in territorial expansion, colonization, world trade, capital exports and emigration to other continents over the past five centuries. Our symbolic dates mark (rather than demarcate) the beginning and ending of European imperialism. Colonisation occurred in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages but between 1415 and 1789 European powers, particularly Britain but also Spain, Portugal, Holland, France and Italy, founded hundreds of colonies. Individual articles have concentrated upon periods of significance for particular countries and are, moreover, analysed within the context of an international economy, evolving through four eras (or orders) of mercantilism (1415–1846), liberalism (1846–1914), neo-mercantilism (1914–48), and decolonisation (1948–74). Our Introduction draws heavily upon six national case studies as well as discussions that took place at a conference in Madrid in 1997. We do not intend to cite particular contributions to the inferences and conclusions in this essay. Our views represent an elaboration upon and an interpretation of the articles that follow.

Carlos III ha gozado tradicionalmente de gran estima entre los historiadores. Richard Herr expresaba el sentir de la mayoría de éstos cuando le describió como el rey que «… hizo por España má;s que ningún otro monarca desde la reina Isabel la Católica», y al afirmar que «entre los déspotas ilustrados de su época, no hubo otro que alcanzara mayor éxito». Su fama se extiende incluso a las finanzas públicas, ruina de muchas regias reputaciones. Sin embargo, tan favorable interpretación debiera motivar cierta inquietud, particularmente en lo que concierne a los asuntos fiscales. Ciertos trabajos recientes se ban mostrado más escépticos con respecto a su reputación en general, y cabe la posibilidad de que dicha estima se deba más a los conocidos objetivos modernizadores de este reinado que a sus realizaciones.

The anthropométric measures, and in particular the physical stature, are used as indicators of changes in the nutritional status and health of populations. The paper shows the utility and the problems of Spanish military records that tell us about changes in the welfare, by human height and weight, during the course of the last two centuries. Data suggest a strong correlation between health, wealth, income and height But the most interesting findings are related with the apparent relationship between human height cycles and economic and demographic cycles that are registered over the course of the twentieth century in Spain.

What was the impact of American aid to Spain during the 1950s? This article revisits this question, addressing it from a rather different perspective to the focus on the relief of supply bottlenecks that dominates the existing Spanish economic historiography. It suggests that there is a prima facie case for the aid programme to have had a positive effect on private agents' expectations. The American backing, as part of the process of international acceptance of the Franco regime, may have provided a «commitment technology» that solved problems of credibility, which would have otherwise hindered investment and hence the resumption of economic growth. The paper concludes with an agenda for further research.

I study the introduction of electricity in Spain (1875–1900) and the consolidation of this industry (1900–1950), from a managerial perspective. The private sector took the lead. The State's participation was subsidiary, helping to create an institutional and legal framework. Firms became local monopolies, and acted jointed as an oligopoly in their relationships with the Administration. Under protected markets and little regulation, their production and pricing strategies aimed at short run profit maximization. As a result, the Spanish consumer was not well attended, and electricity contributed only mildly to growth.

Between 1810 and 1940, a large GDP per capita gap appeared between the industrial core and the poor periphery, the latter producing, increasingly, primary products. Over the same period, the terms of trade facing the periphery underwent a secular boom then bust, peaking in the 1870s or 1890s. These terms of trade trends appear to have been exogenous to the periphery. Additionally, the terms of trade facing the periphery exhibited relatively high volatility. Are these correlations spurious, or are they causal? This Figuerola Lecture, to be given at Carlos III University (Madrid), argues that they are causal, that secular growth and volatility in the terms of trade had asymmetric effects on core and periphery. On the upswing, the secular rise in its terms of trade had powerful de-industrialization effects in the periphery. Over the full cycle 1810–1940, terms of trade volatility suppressed accumulation and growth in the periphery as well.

This article shows the first results of a research project that attempts to analyse the relations between the business groups, the institutional framework and the economic development in 20th century Spain. It employs a microeconomic perspective, a historical-institutional analysis and private archival sources. The article focuses on the businesses of the Aznar family from 1937 (when they took over the management of the firms that formerly belonged to the Sota and Aznar group) to 1983 (when Naviera Aznar, the most important firm of the group, broke out and ceased business). Out of this empirical evidence, the article tries to underline the consequences that an industrial organization based on business groups and on an institutional framework characterized by the State's extreme interventionism and discretionality had on the capabilities and the competitiveness of Spanish firms and industries, and, by extension, on the economic development of Spain during the Franco's regime and the first Governments of the transition to democracy.

This paper discusses some of the criticisms recently raised by Rafael Dobado-González about our work on real wages in the Americas in the long run. Although addressing a series of issues, Dobado mainly questions our use of the welfare ratio methodology to assess standards of living in colonial Spanish America. In this article we explain how, despite its limitations, this methodology provides a solid, transparent metric to compare economic development across space and time. In particular, welfare ratios present more economically relevant information on living standards than the commodity wages that Dobado prefers (Dobado González and García Montero 2014). We argue that Dobado fails to offer convincing evidence against our findings; hence, we stand by these results, which suggest that the divergence between North and Latin America began early in the colonial period.

This article examines some effects of the political and military alliance between Spain and the United States on the Spanish business community in the 1950s and 1960s. The technical aid is taken to be the set of official programs and private contracts and investments that helped disseminate in Spain the techniques and ideas associated with the American model. The articulation process of the economic interests of the United States in Spain is quantitatively and qualitatively analysed. Our research reveals that technical aid and the pro-American circles formed around it, which were partially based on existing business relations, were essential to such process. The Spanish case shows therefore, first, that US foreign economic policy favoured, even if only indirectly, American business during the Cold War. Second, this work provides material and ideas to analyse the Spanish «miracle» as a rather exogenous growth process.

This study aims to answer whether empirical records confirm the existence of a secular decline in the terms of trade affecting primary producers (the Singer–Prebisch hypothesis). The paper analyses the evolution of the terms of trade for agricultural and food products in the second half of the 20th century. We obtain sixty new real price indices for internationally traded agricultural products. We conclude, from a long-term perspective, that the deterioration in the terms of trade for agricultural and food products was strong and clear in the second half of the last century. In general, less processed products suffered a very heavy fall in their real prices. However, there was no continuous and persistent deterioration in the terms of trade either as a whole or for the great majority of the agricultural and food product groups (with the exception of natural rubber, textile fibres and other raw materials). Rather, this deterioration occurred in stages.

En esta ponencia nos proponemos trazar, a grandes rasgos, un esbozo de la evolución del sector agrario español durante la última década del siglo XIX y el primer tercio del actual. Queremos dejar claro, desde un comienzo, que no se trata de un mero ejercicio de estadística, sino de una investigación histórico-económica en el estricto sentido del término.