Searching for the roots of retardation : Spain in European perspective, 1500-1850

This paper investigates when did retardation begin in Spain and examines the evidence on economic performance over three centuries. In contrast to earlier estimates that focus almost exclusively on Castilian agriculture we look at trends in urbanization as a measure of economic activity outside agriculture and construct new measures of agricultural and total output at regional and national levels. We find distinctive long-run behaviour across Spanish regions that reject the identification between Castile and Spain. We also provide new output estimates for six Western European countries that allow placing Spanish performance in comparative perspective. Two main findings are highlighted. At the time of her imperial expansion Spain appears to have a relatively affluent nation and, by the late sixteenth century, her income per head was only below the Low Countries’ and Italy’s. The roots of Spanish retardation lie in the seventeenth century and deepened during the early nineteenth century.Preindustrial Spain, Europe, Urbanization, Agriculture, Retardation

Oferta y demanda de deuda pública en Castilla : juros de alcabalas (1540-1740)

Número monográfico de: Estudios de Historia Económica, nº 55, 2009El objetivo de este trabajo no es abordar el impacto que tuvieron los juros en la evolución económica de Castilla, ni siquiera en las finanzas de la Monarquía, sino analizar el funcionamiento de este instrumento crediticio y su demanda desde una perspectiva a largo plazo: quiénes invirtieron en juros y por qué lo hiciero

Different paths to the modern state in Europe: the interaction between domestic political economy and interstate competition

Theoretical work on state formation and capacity has focused mostly on early modern Europe and on the experience of western European states during this period. While a number of European states monopolized domestic tax collection and achieved gains in state capacity during the early modern era, for others revenues stagnated or even declined, and these variations motivated alternative hypotheses for determinants of fiscal and state capacity. In this study we test the basic hypotheses in the existing literature making use of the large date set we have compiled for all of the leading states across the continent. We find strong empirical support for two prevailing threads in the literature, arguing respectively that interstate wars and changes in economic structure towards an urbanized economy had positive fiscal impact. Regarding the main point of contention in the theoretical literature, whether it was representative or authoritarian political regimes that facilitated the gains in fiscal capacity, we do not find conclusive evidence that one performed better than the other. Instead, the empirical evidence we have gathered lends supports to the hypothesis that when under pressure of war, the fiscal performance of representative regimes was better in the more urbanized-commercial economies and the fiscal performance of authoritarian regimes was better in rural-agrarian economie

Incentivos económicos y derechos de propiedad en la Castilla del siglo XVI

The traditional literature about the Castilian agriculture has interpreted the sale of "baldíos" as one of the main causes of the Castile's decline at the end of the sixteenth century. This paper explains how Castile entered in decadence not because "baldíos" were sold, but because they existed from the fifteenth century onward. Instead of seeing exclusively the new costs faced by farmers after the sale of "baldíos", this paper pays more attention to the effects of this institution for the agrarian sector and the whole economy. "Baldíos" was an agrarian institution that helped to increase production through expansion of land and labor. The Monarchy was its owner but it did not enforce its property rights until 1570s. Without the real enforcement of property rights, "baldíos" allowed peasants to expand their plowing area without commensurate payment. It was a strong incentive to increase factor land and labor in the countryside instead of investment in technology and productivity.Tradicionalmente se ha venido considerando que la venta de tierras "baldías" llevada a cabo por la Corona a finales del siglo XVI fue una de las principales causas de la decadencia de Castilla. La razón es que ese proceso de ventas endeudó a muchos campesinos o les expulsó de la actividad agraria. Este trabajo plantea el problema desde una perspectiva distinta. El origen de la crisis pudo no estar en la venta de los "baldíos", sino la existencia de este tipo de tierras al comenzar la expansión agraria. Los baldíos incentivaron el aumento de la producción sobre tierras marginales porque, aunque la Corona era su dueña, no ejerció sus derechos de propiedad sobre ellas hasta la década de 1570. Durante décadas, el uso de baldíos apenas tuvo un coste para los campesinos. Los baldíos fueron un poderoso incentivo para aumentar el uso del factor tierra, en detrimento de otros factores; o para primar un crecimiento extensivo en lugar de mejorar la productividad

Asientos as sinews of war in the composite superpower of the 16th century

International audienceThe full analysis of the text of a contract, asiento, between Philip II of Spain and a Genoese merchant–banker details how in this pre-modern composite state, merchant–bankers acted as agents of the Crown who gathered many scattered sources of income to the Crown and transformed them into large and regular cash flows, mesadas, for the army. Because of the uncertain availability of these sources, the contract provided flexibility to both parties and legal assistance to the banker who reported to accountants for audit and, if necessary, the charge of an interest at about 1 percent per month

Modulation of cytotoxic responses by targeting CD160 prolongs skin graft survival across major histocompatibility class I barrier

CD160 is a glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored protein of the immunoglobulin superfamily. It exhibits a pattern of expression coincident in humans and mice that is mainly restricted to cytotoxic cells and to all intestinal intraepithelial T lymphocytes. B- and T-lymphocyte attenuator (BTLA) and CD160 interact with cysteine-rich domain 1 of the extracellular region of Herpesvirus entry mediator (HVEM). CD160 engagement by HVEM can deliver inhibitory signals to a small subset of human CD4 T cells and attenuate its proliferation and cytokine secretion, but can also costimulate natural killer cells or intraepithelial lymphocytes. In turn, CD160 and BTLA can also function as agonist ligands being capable of costimulating T cells through membrane HVEM. Based on the restricted pattern of CD160 expression in cytotoxic cells, we postulated that CD160 may represent a suitable target for immune intervention in the setting of transplantation to modulate allogeneic cytotoxic responses. We demonstrated that in vivo administration of anti-CD160 antibody in combination with anti-CD40 L antibody to limit CD4 T-cell help modulated cytotoxic responses in a major histocompatibility complex class I mismatched model of allogeneic skin graft transplantation (bm1 donor to C57BL/6 recipient) and significantly prolonged graft survival. The implementation of this strategy in transplantation may reinforce current immunosuppression protocols and contribute to a better control of CD8 T-cell responses

DALI: Defining antibiotic levels in intensive care unit patients: Are current ß-lactam antibiotic doses sufficient for critically ill patients?

Background. Morbidity and mortality for critically ill patients with infections remains a global healthcare problem. We aimed to determine whether β-lactam antibiotic dosing in critically ill patients achieves concentrations associated with maximal activity and whether antibiotic concentrations affect patient outcome.Methods. This was a prospective, multinational pharmacokinetic point-prevalence study including 8 β-lactam antibiotics. Two blood samples were taken from each patient during a single dosing interval. The primary pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic targets were free antibiotic concentrations above the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the pathogen at both 50% (50% f T>MIC) and 100% (100% f T>MIC) of the dosing interval. We used skewed logistic regression to describe the effect of antibiotic exposure on patient outcome.Results. We included 384 patients (361 evaluable patients) across 68 hospitals. The median age was 61 (interquartile range [IQR], 48–73) years, the median Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score was 18 (IQR, 14–24), and 65% of patients were male. Of the 248 patients treated for infection, 16% did not achieve 50% f T>MIC and these patients were 32% less likely to have a positive clinical outcome (odds ratio [OR], 0.68; P = .009). Positive clinical outcome was associated with increasing 50% f T>MIC and 100% f T>MIC ratios (OR, 1.02 and 1.56, respectively; P < .03), with significant interaction with sickness severity status.Conclusions. Infected critically ill patients may have adverse outcomes as a result of inadequate antibiotic exposure; a paradigm change to more personalized antibiotic dosing may be necessary to improve outcomes for these most seriously ill patients