In this paper we estimate long-term functions of Spanish foreign trade from 1870 to 1913. We find the income elasticity of the Spanish import demand to be higher than the income elasticity of the export demand. This implies that, in die absence of compensation mechanisms, the Spanish economy was condemned to balance-of-payments constraints when its growth was similar to its trade partners'. These constraints implied a constant pressure over die peseta's exchange rate. These findings allows us to contribute to some present debates about Spanish economic policy of that period, particularly those dealing wih the adoption of the gold standard and foreign trade liberation.

In this article we argue that Ming China had a fundamental impact on the rise and decline of the Spanish Empire. China's demand for silver was of such magnitude that private mining profits in the Spanish Empire remained high until about 1640. The decline of these profits led to abandon production. Spain faced a deepening financial crisis due to the fall of silver's value. The loss of purchasing power from the Crown's American enterprise was inevitable and the state's relentless pressure for increased taxation within Castile and elsewhere was mandatory in order to compensate for lost external purchasing power.

The cotton textile industry remains central to all accounts of the first industrial revolution. Innovations in this period precipitated an extraordinary acceleration in the growth of output and a steep decline in the cost of producing all varieties of cloth. In this paper we outline an explanation through an analysis of the community of inventors responsable for the technological transformation, which enables us to offer some new generalizations of the pace and pattern of the inventive activity in this period.

This article studies the Spanish Tax on Consuptions during the second half of the 19th century. It focuses on three issues: a), its significance within the funding of local governments; b), its importance to explain the protests against taxation in the 19th century; and c), its incidence. Our hypothesis is that the mutinies against this tax constituted one of the recurring practices of the resistances against taxation in the 19th century, but not the most important, represented by the tax defraudation. It is also indicated that the Tax on Consumptions was not only a tax on expenditure, and was in part transferred to agriculture. We provide some data that question the exclusively urban character that has been usually attributed to this tax.

The «Compañía de Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados» was made by the silk craftsmen in 1772, but the General Board of Commerce changed its nature to authorize all the social classes to take part in share-holders. Although that circumstance favoured its growth, it laid the foundations of its final failure to provoke a serious conflict between the craftsmen sector, who exercised sole right the managines charges, and the rest of share-holders, which fundamental discord motive was the loss suffered in the commercial crisis of 1779–82. Anyway, the preservation of its private documentation has made it possible to analyse its manufacturing activity and the result of its business; the commercialization of the silk textile in Cádiz stands out.

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.

The aim of this work is to study the foreign trade in agrarian products and foodstuffs during the period 1849–1935. To that end, we have first carried out an analysis of the evolution and composition of agrarian products imports, thereafter reflecting on the reasons which explain the U turn in policy which gave rise to protectionism in 1891 and its effects on these imports.

The second section concentrates on the tendency followed by agrarian exports, seeking to explain the causes for the changes to their make-up.

The work concludes with an attempt to study simultaneously the behaviour of agrarian exports and imports, in order to analyse both their mutual influence and their global effects over the totality of the Spanish economy.

In this paper I analyze the effect of the state-intervention and autarchic economic policy on agriculture in Murcia. I find that the effects were very different depending on the kind of crop existing in a zone: while traditional agriculture regression process was interrupted, modern agriculture expansion rythm became lower. I conclude that the autharchy period can be considered as an interruption of the specialization and modernization Process that had started the previous century, happening in a context of general agriculture slump, with crop surface, consum and returns decreasing at die same time.

The objective of this article is twofold. First, it aims to present a general overview of the exploitation regime of pastures during summer time, as well as the 18th-century ownership structure of the migrating cattle in the Sorian mountains. Second, it analyses the evolution during the second half of the century, paying special attention to the effects that the legislation had on the municipal pastures during the reign of Carlos III. The evidence supports the hypothesis that the legislation was the factor which triggered the first crisis in die trashumancia, that preceded the general crisis at die end of the century by several decades.

The goal of this article is to inquire into the knowledge and sensibility of Keynes with regard to the entrepreneurial world. The vision of Keynes is faced to the interpretation of Marshall. The main conclusion is that Keyne's entrepreneurial ideas led him to misunderstand the reasons and consequences of the industrial decline of the U.K. On the contrary, Marshall, an strict academic, was capable of a better understanding of the English industrial decay.

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.

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.

Pedro Rodriguez Campomanes (1723–1802) is one the most interesting personalities in the political scene of the long Charles III reign. He possessed a great intelligence, a strong character and a non common working capacity. His family was one of modest «hidalgos» in Asturias, and he leaved very young to try his own destiny in the capital. He worked as an assistant and was afterwards a lawyer, always linked to the progrssive groups of «novatores» in Madrid. His entrance to the Public Administration (1755), and above all to the Counsel of Castile (1762), took place in connection with the political struggel against the dominant faction of the «colegiales», who were united to the Jesuits and to the Inquisition. He stands out, most of all, as a public prosecutor in the Counsel, collaborating in the reforms of Charles III and his more progressive ministers.

Based on his contributions to monetary theory, Alfred Marshall expounded on an important institutional innovation in the monetary system: he defended a central bank with more theoretical based arguments than his predecessors did —particularly Walter Bagehot— and he gave a leading role to the monetary authority in managing and controlling monetary policy (especially for countering the cycle). Marshall did not see the central bank system as a «minor evil» but a superior framework —even to any plan based on convertibility— to solve the problem of fluctuations in the value of money and credit cycles. His ideas in monetary policy were the seed for the Cambridge School and their relevance helped to prepare the way for spreading the proposals of John Maynard Keynes about monetary policy.

The insurance industry in modern Spanish history has not practically yet been studied, notwithstanding die considerable significance of this financial activity which is not only a reflection of economic development but also in itself motive power thereof. It may also be used as an indicator of the evolution of other sectors since, in the capitalist system everything of value is always insured. This paper is intended as a first approach to the insurance industry in Spain from 1800 to 1934 and as such it has been given a maximum of generality so as to present a framework which may be used for further investigation.

The purpose of this article is to review the works written by Luis María Pastor, an Spanish economist of mid-19th century, who made theories and proposals of political economy that show an knowledge of the economy above it is supposed. With die exposition of his work, some considerations about the economic and political history of the Isabel II times are made.

«E1 mito del fracaso», extraña transformación del «milagro español» del título original inglés, es un libro importante; importante por su ambitión: dos siglos de historia de España, con abundantes referencias al antes y al después, importante por la novedad de su tratamiento desagregado y por la atención prestada a la interrelación de los fenómenos económicos políticos y sociales. Pero importante sobre todo porque se trata de una obra de tesis o, por mejor decir, de antítesis. La obra parte de una proposición claramente enunciada: la economía y la sociedad españolas crecieron a largo plazo de una manera continuada desde el siglo XVIII o incluso desde finales del siglo XVII, de manera que el «milagro español» de los años setenta no fue más que el resultado y la expresión final de esta larga etapa de crecimiento (pp. 91–92). Este enunciado contradice la tesis dominante sobre la evolución de la economía y la sociedad españolas, la tesis del fracaso de España a la hora de la modernización política y económica, en su doble vertiente: el fracaso de la revolución burguesa y el fracaso de la revolución industrial.

Uno de los temas más discutidos en la historia demográfica ha sido el crecimiento de las poblaciones esclavas del continente americano. En particular ha llamado la atención la diversa experiencia de las distintas regiones y países. Mientras que en Estados Unidos durante la primera mitad del siglo XIX la población esclava creció a una tasa superior al 2%, en el Caribe sufrió una disminución constante, disminución que variaba de isla en isla, pero que en general alcanzaba un 3% anual. En el Brasil, única nación de América del Sur con una gran concentración de mano de obra forzada, la situación fue intermedia, con una caída anual de algo más de 1%. Tanto en el Caribe como en Brasil se buscó compensar la pérdida natural de población mediante la importación de africanos, actividad que se dificultó luego de la prohibición británica de la trata en 1807.