Publication: Globalization, growth and distribution in Spain 1500-1913
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2007-04
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Abstract
The endogenous growth literature has explored the transition from a Malthusian
world where real wages, living standards and labor productivity are all linked to
factor endowments, to one where (endogenous) productivity change embedded
in modern industrial growth breaks that link. Recently, economic historians
have presented evidence from England showing that the dramatic reversal in
distributional trends – from a steep secular fall in wage-land rent ratios before
1800 to a steep secular rise thereafter – must be explained both by industrial
revolutionary growth forces and by global forces that opened up the English
economy to international trade. This paper explores whether and how the
relationship was different for Spain, a country which had relatively poor
productivity growth in agriculture and low living standards prior to 1800, was a
late-comer to industrialization afterwards, and adopted very restrictive policies
towards imports for much of the 19th century. The failure of Spanish wagerental
ratios to undergo a sustained rise after 1840 can be attributed to the
delayed fall in relative agricultural prices (due to those protective policies) and
to the decline in Spanish manufacturing productivity after 1898.
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Growth, Distribution, Globalization, Spain