This study looks at human capital in Spain during the early stages of modern economic growth. We have assembled a new dataset for age-heaping and literacy in Spain with information about men and women from six population censuses and forty-nine provinces between 1877 and 1930. Our results show that, although age-heaping was less prevalent during the second half of the 19th century than previously thought, it did not decline until the early 20th century. Given that literacy increased throughout the whole period, our study thus unveils stark differences between age-heaping and literacy, which raises further questions regarding sources, methods and interpretation.

This paper deals with the evolution of wages in the construction offices of Segovia, one of the most important Castilian and Spanish manufacturing towns, between 1571 and 1807. Part two deals with the nominal wages earned by the building officials and labourers of the city and part three presents the Segovian prices index between 1571 and 1807. Finally, part four analyses the evolution of the real wages earned in the construction offices of the town. Segovian real wages evolved in line with the local economy; after peaking in the first quarter of the 17th century, they experienced a continuous decline, so in 1807 the real wages of Segovian building officials and labourers were 50 per cent of those of the first quarter of the 17th century.

The analysis of the evolution of the location of economic activity in Portugal between 1890 and 1980 depicts a strong concentration of productive activity in the coastal regions. We estimate data for regional GDP per capita, which show that the evolution of regional inequality followed an inverted U-curve, in line with that observed in other regions of Europe, but with a rather late peak, in 1970. The reasons for this behaviour may be found in the limits to industrialisation in the interior regions and the benefits generated by the agglomeration economies in the more developed coastal regions.

The aim of this contribution is the presentation of the political conflicts between the Archbishop of Lima, Toribio Alfonso de Mogrovejo (1538–1606), together with his faithful collaborator the parish priest Alonso de Huerta, and the cathedral chapter. Though the chapter was a sort of senate or permanent council of the diocese clergy, it by no means acted as an institution involved in the missionary commitments of Archbishop Mogrovejo. On the contrary, its members rallied around against what they considered to be a violation of their economic privileges, and on several instances they denounced the Archbishop, as well as the parish priest Alonso de Huerta, arguing that they intruded in the internal rules of the chapter.