This article aims to shed light on the process and mechanisms through which Asian manufactured goods (Chinese silk and porcelain, among others) were commoditised and how markets for such goods were formed in the Spanish Empire. After the opening of the Manila Galleon route in 1571 supply of and demand for Asian goods grew in the Spanish Empire, but retail means of supply of such goods were scantly developed. The article offers an econometric model which, when applied to data on a sample of probate inventories of elites of Mexico City and Seville, determines the influence of belonging to private, familial global networks in consumer demand expansion for Asian manufactures throughout the Spanish Empire.

There has been a lot of research into the economic contribution of the periphery to European economic development during the early modern era. This paper estimates quantitatively the value added in the sugar trade from the Caribbean to Britain in the 18th century. The trade generated a value equivalent to around 1 per cent of British gross domestic product (GDP) by the early 18th century, growing to 4 per cent of GDP a century later. The results show that the sugar trade constituted a dynamic and rapidly growing part of the British economy, most importantly the tertiary sector.

En este documento se analiza la jerarquía urbana de Colombia y sus regiones utilizando información censal de entre 1835 y 2005. Se estudian tres aspectos: 1) la distribución del tamaño poblacional a través de las regularidades empíricas de Zipf y de Gibrat; 2) el cambio en el modelo de crecimiento poblacional, y 3) la validación empírica sobre la coincidencia de la dinámica poblacional para un país y sus regiones. Haciendo uso de la relación rango-tamaño y de técnicas no paramétricas, se encuentra coincidencia nacional y regional desde 1964 del cumplimiento de la ley de Zipf y parcialmente de la ley de Gibrat, lo cual evidencia un cambio en el modelo de crecimiento poblacional desde mediados del siglo XX en los ámbitos nacional y regional.

In 2010 Spain ranked second among EU-15 countries in the manufacture of passenger cars; however, in 1950 the country’s car production had been purely symbolic. Taking as its starting point the trajectories of the enterprises that have shaped the auto industry in Spain, this study explores the sector’s process of development within the interpretative framework proposed by Alfred D. Chandler in Scale and Scope. Until the mid-1970s, SEAT and FASA-Renault, the sector’s first-movers, maintained their position as industry leaders. The entry of Ford and GM in the 1970s was to restructure the industry as it shifted its focus towards exportation to the European Economic Community. Both market share and net profits are used as indicators of the evolution of each car maker.