The occupational structure of Spain, 1877-1981

FIRST PARAGRAPH Spain’s long-run economic growth trajectory in the past two centuries has had major setbacks. Spain fell behind Europe in GDP per capita growth in the nineteenth century, lost even more ground in the interwar period despite being non belligerent in the World Wars, and only managed to catch up in the second half of the twentieth century.1 Historians mostly agree on this assessment, but there is less consensus on the extent and nature of Spanish economic development in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The traditional view was a pessimistic one: led by Nadal’s seminal book on the failure of the industrial revolution in Spain the economic history of Spain written in the 1970s emphasised the absence of intensive economic growth in nineteenth-century Spain, with the exception of some regional industries – textiles in Catalonia, and iron and steel in the Basque Country – which nonetheless had their growth potential curtailed by the backwardness of the agrarian sector and the accompanying lack of domestic consumer demand for manufactured goods. In the 1980s Prados de la Escosura’s reconstruction of macroeconomic series and national accounts led the revisionist, and more optimistic view, with an upward revision of estimates of GDP per capita growth in the nineteenth century and, more importantly, of agricultural productivity

Globalization and wage inequality in South and East Asia, and Latin America: A gender approach

In this paper we analyse the reasons behind the evolution of the gender gap and wage inequality in South and East Asian and Latin American countries. Health human capital improvements, the exposure to free market openness and equal treatment enforcement laws seem to be the main exogenous variables affecting women’s economic condition. During the second globalization era (in the years 1975-2000) different combinations of these variables in South East Asian and Latin American countries have had as a result the diminution of the gender gap. The main exception to this rule according to our data is China where economic reforms have been simultaneous to the increase of gender differences and inequality between men and women. This result has further normative consequences for the measure of economic inequality. The improvement of women’s condition has as a result the diminution of the dispersion of wages. Therefore in most of the countries analysed the consequence of the diminution of the gender gapduring the second global era is the decrease of wage inequality both measured with Gini and Theil indexes.Wage inequality, gender gap, market openness, human capital

Labour and Wages in Pre-Industrial Catalonia

This paper examines labour’s organisation and labour’s reward in Catalonia before the first Industrial Revolution. Using new quantitative evidence on urban wages, it first shows that agricultural and urban real wages did not decrease during the last five decades of the pre-industrial period, despite increasing commodity prices. Secondly, it performs an econometric test that shows that wage responses reflected a condition of labour market integration, with occupational and spatial mobility. New data on the characteristics of immigration in Barcelona have been assembled to reinforce previous findings, and to provide new information on the push factors that inclined labourers to migrate. The paper’s aim is both to test issues long discussed in the literature on labour markets (taking Catalonia as the case study), and to provide new data that may help future research.

Exploring Changes in Earnings Inequality during Industrialization: Barcelona, 1856-1905

This paper provides estimates of wage dispersion in nineteenth-century Barcelona and documents the compression of the pay distribution between 1856 and 1905. A decomposition of inequality changes by sector and gender leads to two conclusions. First, that most of the changes occurred within each industry, of which the textile industry stands out; and second, that although traditional analyses of changes in earnings inequality tend to ignore female labour and earnings arising from piecework, these seem to be, together with the new factory discipline, the key factors in explaining shifts in earnings inequality in industrializing societies.

Globalization and wage inequality in South and East Asia, and Latin America: A gender approach

In this paper we analyse the reasons behind the evolution of the gender gap and wage inequality in South and East Asian and Latin American countries. Health human capital improvements, the exposure to free market openness and equal treatment enforcement laws seem to be the main exogenous variables affecting women¿s economic condition. During the second globalization era (in the years 1975-2000) different combinations of these variables in South East Asian and Latin American countries have had as a result the diminution of the gender gap. The main exception to this rule according to our data is China where economic reforms have been simultaneous to the increase of gender differences and inequality between men and women. This result has further normative consequences for the measure of economic inequality. The improvement of women¿s condition has as a result the diminution of the dispersion of wages. Therefore in most of the countries analysed the consequence of the diminution of the gender gapduring the second global era is the decrease of wage inequality both measured with Gini and Theil indexes

Beta amyloid protein precursor-like (Appl) is a Ras1/MAPK-regulated gene required for axonal targeting in Drosophila photoreceptor neurons

In a genome-wide expression profile search for genes required for Drosophila R7 photoreceptor development we found Beta amyloid protein precursor-like (Appl), the ortholog of human APP, which is a key factor in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. We analyzed Appl expression in the eye imaginal disc and found that is highly accumulated in R7 photoreceptor cells. The R7 photoreceptor is responsible for UV light detection. To explore the link between high expression of Appl and R7 function, we have analyzed Appl null mutants and found reduced preference for UV light, probably because of mistargeted R7 axons. Moreover, axon mistargeting and inappropriate light discrimination are enhanced in combination with neurotactin mutants. R7 differentiation is triggered by the inductive interaction between R8 and R7 precursors, which results in a burst of Ras1/MAPK, activated by the tyrosine kinase receptor Sevenless. Therefore, we examined whether Ras1/MAPK is responsible for the high Appl expression. Inhibition of Ras1 signaling leads to reduced Appl expression, whereas constitutive activation drives ectopic Appl expression. We show that Appl is directly regulated by the Ras/MAPK pathway through a mechanism mediated by PntP2, an ETS transcription factor that specifically binds ETS sites in the Appl regulatory region. We also found that zebrafish appb expression increased after ectopic fgfr activation in the neural tube of zebrafish embryos, suggesting a conserved regulatory mechanism.This work was supported by an FPU grant of the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Spain to N.M.; and by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovació [grant numbers BFU2009-09781 and CSD2007-00008 to F.S.