This study examines a facet of institutional change in 19th Century Spain. Empirical analysis of a zone in the Ebro valley confirms that the process of selling commons prior to the 1855 Ley de Desamortización (Disentailment Law) was of great significance. It evaluates the nature of the changes...

This paper analizes the impact of the globalization of Mediterranean horticultural products (MHP). From 1850 onwards, the Mediterranean countries took advantage of the new opportunities that arose to increase their production and trade in MHP. The Spanish case shows how the high elasticity of...

This paper presents preliminary estimates of the contribution of the railway technology to GDP growth in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico before 1914, and compares them with the available figures for two European economies (Britain and Spain). The results of the estimation indicate that the growth...

This study examines the reasons for changes in the composition of international trade in agricultural and food products. We use a Gravity Model to compare the impact of the key factors in bilateral agri-food trade, which we split into three main product groups, between 1963 and 2000 for a...

In recent times a great deal of attention is being paid to the repercussions that the appearance of California as a new supplier of “Mediterranean products” had over the traditional producer countries located on the Mediterranean rim. The paper focuses on orange farming and starts with a...

This paper investigates the relationship between height and economic development in Spain in the modern period. The relation is investigated using recently constructed times series with recruitment data of conscripts. We observed changes in average height along the analyzed period. These...

In recent years the European winegrowing regions have been carrying out deep changes in response to increasing international competition, outstanding the case of Spain. This study analyses the main sequences of changes the Spanish wine industry has undergone: the evolution of consumption; the...

The proliferation of regional trade agreements in the last decades of the 20th century has intensified the debate about the different processes of regional integration. This study contributes to this debate by analysing the principal determinants of the growth in trade flows of the countries...

The massive land privatization that took place over the 19th century deeply transformed the Spanish economic landscape. Nevertheless, the outcome of the process was quite different, both in pace and impact, depending on the geographic area we analyze. The explanation for this regional diversity...

The financial disturbances that originated in the US in the second half of 2007 are the latest in a series of episodes in various regions of the world in recent years. However, financial crises are not unique to current financial systems, history being full of banking and exchange rate crises....