Abstract: Two distinctive regimes are distinguished in Spain over half a millennium. The first one (1270s–1590s) corresponds to a high land–labour ratio frontier economy, which is pastoral, trade-oriented, and led by towns. Wages and food consumption were relatively high. Sustained per capita growth occurred from the end of the Reconquest (1264) to the Black Death (1340s) and resumed from the 1390s only broken by late fifteenth-century turmoil. A second regime (1600s–1810s) corresponds to a more agricultural and densely populated low-wage economy which, although it grew at a pace similar to that of 1270–1600, remained at a lower level. Contrary to pre-industrial western Europe, Spain achieved its highest living standards in the 1340s, not by mid-fifteenth century. Although its death toll was lower, the plague had a more damaging impact on Spain and, far from releasing non-existent demographic pressure, destroyed the equilibrium between scarce population and abundant resources. Pre-1350 per capita income was reached by the late sixteenth century but only exceeded after 1820.The timing of and reasons for Spain’s decline have been subjects of ongoing debate since Earl Hamilton‘s seminal contribution, and attempts have been made at quantifying Spain’s relative position over time.2 It has recently been suggested that Spain had attained affluence prior to its American expansion, and that this increased throughout the sixteenth century, so that by 1590 it was among the top countries in Europe in per capita income terms.3 This finding raises the crucial question of when, and why, Spain achieved such early prosperity.
This article provides a tentative answer by examining Spain’s comparative performance over the half-millennium between the end of the Reconquest (1264) and the beginning of modern economic growth by the mid-nineteenth century.4 It proceeds, first, by estimating trends in output. Specifically, movements in agricultural output are drawn using an indirect demand approach (section II), while those in industry and services are proxied through changes in urban population not living on agriculture (section III). Thus, trends in per capita output over the period 1280–1850 are obtained (section IV).5 A re-examination of Spain’s relative position within western Europe closes the article.
From our quantitative exercise we conclude that two distinctive regimes appear to exist in preindustrial Spain. The first one (1270s–1590s) corresponds to a high land–labour ratio frontier economy, largely pastoral, trade-oriented, and led by towns. Wage and food consumption levels were relatively high. Sustained per capita growth took place from the 1270s, after the de facto end of the Reconquest (figure 1), until the 1340s, when the Black Death (1348) and the Spanish phase of the Hundred Years War (1365–89) interrupted it. Growth resumed, then, only interrupted by late fifteenth-century political turmoil. The second regime (1600s–1810s) corresponds to a more agricultural and densely populated, low-wage economy, with growth occurring along a lower path.
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دراسات مشرقية - Oriental Studies 