El papel del crédito rural en la agricultura del Antiguo Régimen: desarrollo y crisis de las modalidades crediticias (1600-1850)

This commentary sums up the communications presented to the session of the Vl" Spanish Agrarian History Seminar devoted to the rural credit during the Ancien Régime. It asks several questions on the moneylender's and borrower' s identities, the different types of loans, the common use of the consignative census (censos consignativos), the usury mechanisms related to the profit and interest rates, the role of the public granaries (pósitos), the crisis of this mortgage system, and the changes brought about by the liberal laws of the XIXth century.Este comentario resume las comunicaciones presentadas a la sesión del VI Seminario de Historia Agraria dedicada al crédito rural durante el Antiguo Régimen. Plantea varios interrogantes sobre la identidad de prestamistas y prestatarios, los diversos instrumentos de crédito hipotecario, al predominio de los censos consignativos, los mecanismos usurarios en relación a los tipos de beneficio e interés, el papel de los pósitos, la crisis de este sistema crediticio, y los cambios introducidos por la legislación liberal del siglo XIX

Renta señorial y renta de la tierra en la última etapa del Antiguo Régimen en Cataluña

In the eighteen century Catalonia, both manorial and land incomes developed in a fairly similar way. Feudal income suffered a remarkable decline during the previous century, and manorial deduction per tenant dismissed the first half of the seventeenth century. Yet, from 1760 to 1780, a feudal reaction which slaughtered agrarian growth took place. Peasantry responses brought on the system slump, opening up the cycle of liberal revolution

The grape phylloxera plague as a natural experiment: the upkeep of vineyards in Catalonia (Spain), 1858-1935

We present a comparative analysis of the impact and outcome in Catalonia of the wine rush and crash unleashed by the spread of the Grape Phylloxera plague in Europe (1865-1890). In order to explain why many rural districts in the provinces of Barcelona and Tarragona were able to resume winegrowing after the plague, while most in the provinces of Girona and Lleida were not, a statistical model is used to check the economic resilience of the Catalan districts to the external ecological and economic shock. The model combines the population densities as a proxy of the opportunity cost in labour allocation, the demand pull of commercial growth measured by the time-distances to the city of Barcelona, and the agroclimatic land's suitability for growing vines, as measured by the Hugling and Winkler indices or the mean slopes of land. After comparing the vineyard allocation in every district in 1860, 1889 and 1920, these variables are used to explain the differing capacities to endure the Phylloxera plague in Catalonia

Analizando sistemas alimentarios: un marco de investigación a escala nacional.

There is wide consensus on the urgency to transform current food systems to be more sustainable and fairer. The aim of this article is to advance understandings of the functioning of national food systems and identify levers of change that could enable such transformation. Departing from food regimes—which address global food relations throughout the contemporary history of capitalism—and combining it with the approaches of social metabolism and surplus/reproduction, we propose a research framework to study food systems at the national scale, and in particular their role in the reproduction processes of the capitalist system. We use a national scale as unit of analysis because of the relevant roles the state holds on food systems. The resulting research framework consist of six dimensions, which encompass thirty elements in total, linked through six key cross-cutting connections. By doing so, we contribute to expand on food regime by overcoming some of its main limitations: remaining at the world scale and its level of abstraction. In addition, we expand the political economy of food systems and link it to political ecology.Existe un amplio consenso sobre la urgencia de transformar los sistemas alimentarios actuales para que sean más sostenibles y justos. Este artículo pretende avanzar en el estudio del funcionamiento de los sistemas alimentarios a escala nacional e identificar las palancas de cambio que podrían hacer posible esta transformación. Partiendo de los regímenes alimentarios —que abordan las relaciones globales de la agricultura y la alimentación en la historia contemporánea del capitalismo— y combinándolos con los enfoques del metabolismo social y excedente/reproducción, desarrollamos un marco de investigación para estudiar los sistemas alimentarios contemporáneos a escala nacional, y en particular el rol que tienen en los mecanismos de reproducción del sistema capitalista. Tomamos la escala nacional como unidad de análisis dado los importantes roles y obligaciones que el Estado ejerce sobre los sistemas alimentarios. El marco de investigación que proponemos consiste en seis dimensiones, que comprenden treinta elementos en total, y seis conexiones transversales entre elementos y dimensiones. Con esto trabajo contribuimos a la expansión de los regímenes alimentarios superando algunas de sus limitaciones más significativas: su escala global y su nivel de abstracción. Asimismo, también contribuimos al desarrollo de la economía política de los sistemas alimentarios, integrando nuevos enfoques y acercándola a la ecología política