Wages and prices in early Catalan industrialisation

Catalonia was the only Mediterranean region among the early followers of the British Industrial Revolution in the second third of the nineteenth century. The roots of this industrialisation process can be traced back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the Catalan economy became successfully integrated in international trade and the region enjoyed an intensification of its agrarian and proto-industrial activities. These capitalist developments were subsequently reinforced by a successful printed calico manufacturing business concentrated in the city of Barcelona. Although the factory system was largely adopted by the cotton industry in the 1840s, the diffusion of the spinning jenny had occurred earlier in the 1790s. In this paper, in line with Allen (2009a, 2009b), we explore whether relative factor prices played a role in the widespread adoption of the spinning jenny in Catalonia

The upswing of regional income inequality in Spain (1860-1930).

This paper studies the evolution of Spanish regional inequality from 1860 to 1930. The results point to the coexistence of two basic forces behind changes in regional economic inequality: industrial specialization and labor productivity differentials. The initial expansion of industrialization, in a context of growing economic integration of regions, promoted the spatial concentration of manufacturing in certain regions, which also benefited from the greatest advances in terms of labor productivity. Since 1900, the diffusion of manufacturing production to a greater number of locations generated the emulation of production structures and a process of catching-up in labor productivity and wages.Industrialization; Market Integration; Heckscher-Ohlin Model; New Economic Geography;

The upswing of regional income inequality in Spain (1860–1930).

This paper studies the evolution of Spanish regional inequality from 1860 to 1930. The results point to the coexistence of two basic forces behind changes in regional economic inequality: industrial specialization and labor productivity differentials. The initial expansion of industrialization, in a context of growing economic integration of regions, promoted the spatial concentration of manufacturing in certain regions, which also benefited from the greatest advances in terms of labor productivity. Since 1900, the diffusion of manufacturing production to a greater number of locations has generated the emulation of production structures and a process of catching-up in labor productivity and wagesIndustrialization; Market integration; Heckscher–Ohlin model; New economic geography; Regional convergence;

El potencial de mercado provincial en España, 1860-1930 : un estudio de nueva geografía económica e historia económica

Incluye bibliografí

Pre-industrial inequality in Catalonia

This paper analyses economic inequality in Catalonia in the early 18th century using the information contained in cadastral tax records. The data set includes 2,617 male taxpayers distributed across 17 towns in inland Catalonia. Our findings show that income inequality in the 1720s was lower in Catalonia than in other Western European societies, but very close to other parts of Iberia. We take advantage of the wealth of information provided by the cadastre to study economic inequality in greater depth in a pre-industrial society by looking at the different sources of income, income groups and occupations. We find that the towns with a noteworthy presence of proto-industrial activities, measured by the number of textile artisans, were less unequal. Lastly, we explore the effect of proto-industrial wool specialization on levels of inequality and suggest channels that would explain the identified effect

The long-term patterns of regional income inequality in Spain (1860-2000)

This paper studies the evolution of Spanish regional inequality from 1860 to 2000. The results point to the coexistence of two basic forces behind changes in regional economic inequality: differences in economic structure and labor productivity across regions. In the Spanish case, the initial expansion of industrialization during the period 1860-1900, in a context of growing economic integration of regions, promoted the spatial concentration of manufacturing in certain regions, which also benefited from the greatest advances in terms of labor productivity. Since 1900 and until 1985, the diffusion of manufacturing and services production to a greater number of locations generated the emulation of production structures and a process of catching-up in labor productivity and wages. So, in these first 125 years, national market integration and economic growth has been followed by a Ushaped evolution of regional incomes inequality. Nevertheless, some productivity differentials remained and, from 1985 on, the Spanish entry in the UE generated a new upsurge of divergence in productivity across Spanish regions that could be in the base of a new phase of regional income divergence

Why did Spanish Regions not Converge before the Civil War? Agglomeration Economies and (Regional) Growth Revisited

In this paper we explore the relationship between the presence of agglomeration economies and regional economic growth in Spain during the period 1870-1930. The study allows us to revisit the existence of a trade-off between economic growth and territorial cohesion, and also to examine whether the existence of agglomeration economies could explain the upswing in regional income inequality during the early stages of development. In doing so, we present alternative indicators for agglomeration economies and estimate conditional growth regressions at province (NUTS3) level. In line with new economic geography models, agglomeration economies in a context of market integration widened regional inequality in the second half of the 19th century and hindered its reduction during the early decades of the 20th.En este artículo se analiza la existencia de una relación entre la presencia de economías de aglomeración y el crecimiento económico regional en España durante el periodo 1870-1930. El estudio permite revisitar la existencia de un trade-off entre crecimiento económico y cohesión territorial y, además, examinar si las economías de aglomeración fueron un elemento clave a la hora de explicar el incremento de la desigualdad económica regional en España a lo largo de las primeras fases del desarrollo. Para ello, se presentan diferentes indicadores de aglomeración a nivel provincial (NUTS3) que posteriormente se incluyen en la estimación de regresiones de crecimiento condicionadas. En la línea de los modelos de Nueva Geografía Económica (NEG), sugerimos que la presencia de economías de aglomeración en un contexto de integración de mercado favoreció la aparición de una causación acumulativa que amplió la desigualdad regional en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX y dificultó su reducción durante las primeras décadas del siglo XX.Authors acknowledge financial support from the MINECO project ECO2012-39169-CO3-02

Inequality and Growth in a Developing Economy: Evidence from Regional Data (Spain, 1860–1930)

This article measures inequality at the provincial level in Spain for different benchmark years between 1860 and 1930. It then empirically assesses the relationship between economic growth and inequality. The results confirm that, although growing incomes did not directly contribute to reducing inequality, at least during the early stages of modern economic growth, other processes associated with economic growth such as the rural exodus to urban and industrial centers, the demographic transition, and the spread of literacy, among others, notably improved the situation of the bottom part of the population