Limitaciones a la integración de los mercados peninsulares en la monarquía hispánica. El sureste peninsular en los siglos XV y XVI

Abstract

Authoritarian Monarchies in the Early Modern period have been considered as a keystone of the outset of the market economy in Europe. However, as a result of their own need of coexistence with other power institutions, it has to be taken into account that those monarchies implied the survival of inefficient economic arrangements that did not precisely contribute to market integration across the Continent. Among the inefficient economic policies we can lists fixed prices as well as communal granaries, charts to assure cites supply or handicaps to free movement of goods by the customs policy into the realms. It would be mistaken to argue that those policies against free internal trade were a burden for the economic growth without analyzing the special conditions under which market run in the 17th century. The effects of the demand over the supply were not identical everywhere and, hence, its use as an explanatory concept for economic growth takes the risk of being used without an empirical base. This paper focuses on the effects that the demand caused over the householders, the appearance of rent-seeking and the consequences of high cereals prices that forced the Monarchy to limit the free internal trade in order maintaining the social status quo.Monarchy, markets convergence, demand, supply, economic growth