Beginning with Horwitz thesis on industrialization and tort law, this paper studies the law of accidents and the public regulation of industry in xixth century Spain. It shows that both the common law and die continental legal systems helped to develop industry and railroads through the negligence rule and positive public regulation. The paper concludes with a short discussion of rent-seeking and ideology as arguments that can explain these changes in the legal tradition.

Ha habido numerosos intentos de escribir la historia de la Revolución Industrial en función de determinadas condiciones previas y necesarias que tienen que satisfacerse antes de que se produzca con éxito la industrialización. Por ejemplo, algunos siguen manteniendo que la «revolución agrícola» tiene que preceder u ocurrir al mismo tiempo que una Revolutión Industrial. Esta hipótesis se contrasta señalando las mejoras de la agricultura británica que acaecieron en el siglo xviii. Un enfoque diferente estima que la aceleración en el crecimiento de la población que tuvo lugar después de 1750 contribuyó al desencadenamiento de la Revolutión Industrial en Gran Bretaña. Un tercer enfoque considera al comercio exterior como el «motor» de la Revolutión Industrial, y al rápido crecimiento de las exportaciones —que incluían una parte más que proporcional de bienes producidos en el sector moderno— como esencial para el desarrollo industrial subsiguiente. Todos estos enfoques adolecen de una aplicación del principio post hoc ergo propter hoc. Es más correcto comenzar buscando las relaciones causales exactas entre los acontecimientos exógenos a la industria y la Revolutión Industrial, y, luego, preguntar si se puede demostrar que estas «condiciones previas» fueron en realidad indispensables.

This paper studies the composition and administration of municipal finances in the Kingdom of Aragon during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Economic prosperity during the sixteenth century allowed town councils to carry out significant projects in order to transform the terms between man and landscape, to expand economic activities or to increase the public power. As a result of this administration, raising indebtedness during the seventeenth century caused the bankruptcy of town councils. Their financial difficulties were sharpened by the fiscal demands from the monarchy during the second quarter of this century and imposed to municipal authorities the increase of incomes. Final bankruptcy of town councils in Aragon will transfer the control of propios and communal lands to Juntas composed by creditors and an important representation of clergymen.

El conjunto de mercancías que hemos incluido en este trabajo, bajo la denominación de «productos agrarios y alimentos», es muy amplio, ya que incluye, además de los productos agrícolas, ganaderos, forestales y pesqueros propiamente dichos, todos sus transformaxsxdos industriales destinados a la alimentación humana y algunos productos intermedios, como maderas transformadas, pieles y otros de menor importancia. Nuestro criterio coincide casi en su totalidad con el que se utiliza habitualmente cuando se analiza el comercio exterior de este tipo de productos. A este respecto, puede comprobarse cómo en los Anuarios de Estadística Agraria que publica el Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentatión se incluyen en su sección de comercio exterior los mismos productos con los que nosotros hemos trabajado (el Ministerio incluye también maquinaria agrícola y algunos inputs como fertilizantes sobre los que se considera interesante disponer de información, aunque no sean productos agrarios; nosotros hemos incluido los muebles de madera en el quiza unico caso en el que hemos considerado un producto de este tipo). No es posible realizar ahora, por razones de espacio, un mayor desglose sobre todas y cada una de las partidas que hemos analizado, aunque hemos preparado, y está en vías de publicatión, un documento de trabajo titulado «Una clasificación de las partidas arancelarias correspondientes a los productos agrarios y alimentos en las Estadísticas del Comercio Exterior de España, 1849–1935», en el que se detallan para cada año las partidas utilizadas y el tipo de agrupación realizado, por lo que remitimos a este trabajo a quienes deseen profundizar más en tal sentido.

El estudio, cuyas líneas maestras intenta presentar este Proyecto, pretende invitar a una lectura detenida de los opúsculos de Juan Luis Vives De Subventione Pauperum (1526), Deliberatión en la causa de los pobres (1545) de Domingo de Soto, y De la orden que en algunos pueblos de España se ha puesto en la limosna para remedio de los verdaderos pobre (1545).

Given the financial difficulties of the Spanish Crown in the 17th century, a willing ear was turned to proposals for combining Italian type Monti di Pietà with Crown chartered erarios, to finance both the Crown and private borrowers: nefarious usury was avoided by granting loans under the guise of a mortgage or lien. The Cortes of Castille favoured the project, but later scuppered it to stop the Count Duke of Olivares from using it as a taxing device.

The study makes it clear that the Cortes kept their powers of resistance for a century after the rout of the Comuneros at Villalar hence the abundance of projects addressed to the Cortes and a lively and sensitive public opinion, beside those addressed to die King and his ministers. The analysis of loans granted under mortgages and liens helps map the slow progress of die spirit of capitalism in baroque Spain.

This paper seeks to calculate long term trends of land productivity in Spain, 1752–1930, using for it a practically unknown source in the Spanish historiography, die General Wealth Notebooks (1818–1820).

The conclusion of this study is that during the 19th century agricultural productivity grew substantially in Spain —70 % for the cereal in the sown land and doubled the yield in the vineyard—, contradicting the generally accepted view by historians.

In 1856 the Banco EspañOl de La Habana started to operate. According to its Charter it was the only banking institution with privilege to issue. Its relations with the government were thus very close from the beginning. This article studies the evolution of the bank between 1856 and 1880. Special attention is paid to its financial support to the government, particularly during the Cuban insurrection of 1868. We also point out the assistance of the Spanish government to this institution in periods of maximum strain (crisis of 1857 and 1866) and the key role of the bank as a piece in the political and administrative machinery of the colony.

La finalidad de esta Guía es dar a conocer los principales archivos y fondos documentales en los que se conservan fuentes para el estudio de la inversión extranjera en España durante el siglo XIX. Este tema, tan importante para la investigación de la historia económica española, ha llamado desde siempre la atención de los historiadores no sólo españoles sino también foráneos. Hoy día existe una apreciable cantidad de libros publicados que de una manera u otra se refieren a los aspectos legales, fiscales o políticos relacionados con la inversión extranjera en España. Se puede asegurar que es un asunto que siempre ha sido polémico y que muchas veces incluso ha despertado apasionamiento, en gran medida precisamente por sus implicaciones políticas. Algunos historiadores lo han considerado como un vehículo para una cierta forma de «colonialismo», mientras que otros lo ven como un claro signo de debilidad por parte del país receptor de la inversión cuando por ejemplo el ahorro interior es insuficiente para cubrir sus necesidades financieras.

Using the coefficient of variations for heights, this paper examines the evolution of net nutrition inequality in Argentina from 1875 to 1950. It uses various samples of recruits and soldiers, previously gathered by the author. Evidence points to two important findings: (a) export-led growth led to stable or declining net-nutrition inequality; while import-substituting industrialisation generated significant net nutrition inequality; and (b) the highest levels of inequality in net nutrition took place during this latter phase in large urban, industrialised areas.

This paper provides a new index of money market and bank lending interest rates in Spain for 1900–1935. New archival evidence reveals a structural change in market interest rates vis-à-vis the official rates charged by the Banco de España (BdE). Before 1914, the BdE rate operated as a ceiling to market rates. The outbreak of the First World War caused market rates to soar and the BdE rate started operating as a floor, as bank liquidity started depending on the BdE. This was accompanied by new banking legislation introduced in 1921, which changed the collateral framework through which the BdE lent to banks. The resulting interest rate index illustrates the persistent impact of financial deglobalisation caused by the outbreak of the War.

In the last decades of the sixteenth and the beginning of seventeenth century -that is, at the time Don Quixote was written and published-, an important change began in Spanish-muslim commercial relations. Removal of products, based on raids and plunders, thanks to north-African kings vassalage and subjection of tribes living on the coast, turned into mercantile interchanges completely normalized with those countries, impossible to be dominate. The importance and vitality of this trade is testified by the arrival of ships from Muslim countries, wheat imports from these and, last of all, American silver shipped to the quoted destinations.

There are many studies about the export failure of the Spanish cotton industry, but they are mainly focused on specific features of the Spanish economy. This article applies new trade theories to this topic. Taking into account this theoretical framework, the main hypothesis is the imperfect competition of international cotton textile markets in 1913. The econometric model employed in this paper measures the influence of variables such as historical and geographical dependencies, home market effect and product differentiation strategies. This international approach shows new explanations to the lack of an export orientation of the Spanish cotton industry.

This article tries to provide a specific analytical framework which includes labour as an essential factor within die internal and external set of relations defining the competitiveness of firms and their strategies to adapt to the environment in which they operate. Special attention is given to the Spanish case, taking into consideration its regional and sectorial diversity. Instead of studying labour as an input to be bought and applied, or the history of the conflict between employers and employees, this article analyses the evolution of how different forms labour have been organised within firms. Labour is considered as an element with the potential to provide an incentive, to impede, facilitate, delay, and mainly adapt technological change to the different factor endowments. The emphasis is put on human capital —mainly shopfloor skills, organisation skills and research skills— instead of physical capital to explain the competitiveness of firms. Special attention is reserved to the institutional context and the interaction between business and governments on labour issues, analysing the state as an employer, regulator and intermediary in the transmission of skills and knowledge.