New series of the Spanish foreign sector, 1850-2000

Abstract

This paper offers new series on the evolution of the foreign sector of the Spanish economy in the period between 1821 and 2001. Besides the classical series of the trade balance in current, constant and gold pesetas, it incorporates the series of incomes, payments and balance of the main entries of the Current Account and Capital Balance, along with a special treatment of the tourist series since the 1920s. As a complement to the analysis of the foreign sector, new indicators of trade, financial and customs tariffs protection and degree of openness of the Spanish economy have been included together with new homogeneous estimations of the distribution by products and the revealed comparative advantage (according to a systematic aggregate following the Standard International Trade Classification (SITC. 2 (UN (1985) and GATT (1986)) as well as the geographical distribution of exports and imports (following the UN Classification (INE (2002)).