Joan R. Rosés

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at London School of Economics and Political Science

Determinants of pandemic-related mortality are not well understood. To begin with, there is no consensus on the best approach to count pandemic-related deaths. We argue that excess mortality is a good measure for the 1918 Flu in Spain, but it may not be suitable for other countries. There was substantial variation in excess mortality across occupat...

Which are the effects of pandemics on real wages? In a Malthusian (pre-industrial) economy, one would expect that population debacles increase real wages since resources (land) per head grew. However, in modern economies, pandemics may reduce consumption, which may affect labour demand and, thus, put downward pressure on real wages. During the Span...

Do pandemics affect the aggregate production of the economy? If this is the case, are the effects long-lived? To consider these two questions, we propose a framework to understand the effects of pandemics on short- and long-run aggregate output. We review the diverse economic consequences of pre-world pandemics (including the Black Death) and the S...

In this section, we discuss how pandemics affect the returns to capital. First, we explain how pre-industrial pandemics distorted capital (land) returns and review the existing empirical literature. Then, we focus on modern pandemics and explain their effect on housing. For modern pandemics, we focus on housing since it is the most important physic...

As Covid-19, the Spanish Flu was a global pandemic, hitting countries at roughly similar times. However, there were substantial differences in mortality rates between and within countries. The Spanish Flu spread across the world through the movements of troops in the Great War, international trade networks, and migrant flows. The pandemic expanded...

The current productivity slowdown has stimulated research on the causes of growth. We investigate here the proximate determinants of long‐term growth in Spain. Over the last 170 years, output per hour worked raised nearly 24‐fold dominating gross domestic product (GDP) growth, while hours worked per person shrank by one‐fourth and population treble...

The current productivity slowdown has stimulated research on the causes of growth. We investigate here the proximate determinants of long‐term growth in Spain. Over the last 170 years, output per hour worked raised nearly 24‐fold dominating gross domestic product (GDP) growth, while hours worked per person shrank by one‐fourth and population treble...

The current productivity slowdown has stimulated research on the causes of growth. We investigate here the proximate determinants of long-term growth in Spain. Over the last 170 years output per hour worked raised nearly 24-fold dominating GDP growth, while hours worked per person shrank by one-fourth and population trebled. Half of labour producti...

Spanish land reform, involving the breakup of the large southern estates, was a central issue during the first decades of the twentieth century, and was justified on economic and political grounds. This article employs new provincial data on landless workers, land prices, and agrarian wages to consider whether government intervention was needed bec...

During the decades prior to the Civil War, Spain experienced a rapid process of urbanization, which was accompanied by the demographic transition and sizeable rural–urban migrations. This article investigates how urban housing markets reacted to these far-reaching changes, which increased demand for dwellings. To this end, this study employs a new...

This chapter analyzes the transformation process of Catalonia into a major industrial district. Our analysis finds that the origins of industrial development can be traced back to the first decades of the eighteenth century with a calico-printing industry appearing with the support of a prohibitionist trade policy. This early development led to the...

Spanish land reform, involving the break-up of the large southern estates, was a central issue during the first decades of the twentieth century. This paper uses new provincial data on landless workers, land prices and agrarian wages to consider if government intervention was needed because of the failure of the free action of markets to redistribu...

Building on a new estimation of regional gross domestic product (GDP) from 1860 to 2000, this paper evaluates the long-run evolution of regional income inequality in Spain. It is found that sustained economic growth and the progressive integration of national markets have been accompanied by an inverted ‘U’-shaped evolution of regional income inequ...

In many countries, regional income inequality has followed an inverted U-shaped curve, growing during industrialization and market integration and declining thereafter. By contrast, Sweden's regional inequality dropped from 1860 to 1980 and did not exhibit this U-shaped pattern. Accordingly, today's regional income inequality in Sweden is lower tha...

This article makes the first systematic attempt to analyse quantitatively the evolution of Spanish housing markets from 1904 to 1934, a period of dramatic changes in housing demand as a consequence of substantial income and demographic growth. In order to do so, we collect a new database on houses sold and their prices using data from the Registrar...

This paper is an attempt at assessing the economic impact of market-oriented reforms undertaken during General Franco’s dictatorship, in particular, the 1959 Stabilization and Liberalization Plan. Using an index of macroeconomic distortions (IMD) the relationship between economic policies and the growth record is examined. Although a gradual reduct...

This paper discusses how Spain"s housing markets reacted to the far-reaching changes that affected the demand for dwellings during the first phase of the rural-urban transition process. To this end, we construct a new hedonic index of real housing prices and assemble a cross-regional panel dataset of price fundamentals. The results of our econometr...

We investigate human capital accumulation in Spain using income- and education-based alternative approaches. We, then, assess human capital impact on labor productivity growth and discuss the implications of its alternative measures for TFP growth. Trends in human capital are similar with either measure but the skill-premium approach fits better Sp...

This paper studies the evolution of Spanish regional inequality from 1860 to 1930. The results point to the coexistence of two basic forces behind changes in regional economic inequality: industrial specialization and labor productivity differentials. The initial expansion of industrialization, in a context of growing economic integration of region...

New series of Spain's capital stock and input are provided for the last one and a half centuries for the first time. Capital stock and input grew at average rates of 3.5 and 3.7 percent per year, respectively, but not at a steady pace since rates accelerated dramatically during the “Golden Age.” Two major structural changes accompanied this process...

Stabilizing and liberalizing policies are key elements of the Washington Consensus. This paper adds a historical dimension to the ongoing debate by assessing the economic impact of market-oriented reforms undertaken during General Franco’s dictatorship, the 1959 Stabilization and Liberalization Plan. Using an index of macroeconomic distortions (IMD...

This paper examines changes in the organization of the Spanish cotton industry from 1736 to 1860 in its core region of Catalonia. As the Spanish cotton industry adopted the most modern technology available and experienced the transition to the factory system, cotton spinning and weaving mills became increasingly vertically integrated. Asset specifi...

This paper examines changes in the organization of the Spanish cotton industry from 1720 to 1860 in its core region of Catalonia. As the Spanish cotton industry adopted the most modern technology and experienced the transition to the factory system, cotton spinning and weaving mills became increasingly vertically integrated. Asset specificity more...

We investigate human capital accumulation in Spain using alternative approaches based on the concept of ‘labor quality’ and on the idea of education. We, then, assess the effect of human capital accumulation on labor productivity growth and discuss the implications of the different measures for TFP growth. While long-run trends in human capital are...

To what extent were land markets the cause of Spanish agrarian backwardness? This paper uses new provincial data on average real land prices, together with provincial level variation in land productivity, to analyse land markets efficiency. To address this unresolved issue, we test whether land markets were spatially integrated and whether their pr...

We survey aggregate growth in a sample of 27 European countries during the interwar period. We discuss the available data, possible explanations for a slowdown in growth rates and test the explanatory power of several hypotheses put forward in the literature.

In this paper, new series of Spain’s capital stock and input are constructed for the last one-and-a-half centuries. Capital stock and input grew at average rates of 3.5 and 3.7 percent per year but not at a steady pace since rates accelerated dramatically during the ‘Golden Age’. Two major structural changes accompanied this process. Composition of...

AB Asesores, Views on a Decade: The Spanish Economy and Financial System, 1984–1994 (Madrid: AB Asesores, 1994. 257 pp.) - Volume 3 Issue 2 - Joan R. Rosés

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This paper argues that the patters of income and wealth distribution of the economies may explain the productive and trade specialization in the long run. Two channels are considered to understand the relations between both processes: demand for goods and institutional and geographical factors. The analysis focus on four proximate causes of special...

The endogenous growth literature has explored the transition from a Malthusian world where real wages, living standards and labour 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 s...

Between 1850 and 2000, Spain’s real income increased by about 40-fold, at an average rate of 2.5 percent. The sources of this long-run growth are investigated using Jorgenson-type growth accounting analysis. We find that growth upsurges are closely related to increases in TFP. Spanish economic growth went through three successive phases. The centur...

We are grateful for the excellent research assistant support supplied by. We also have benefited from help with the data, useful advice and criticism offered by Abstract Like the rest of the poor periphery, Mexico had to deal with de-industrialization forces between 1750 and 1913, those critical 150 years when the economic gap between the industria...

Real wages PPP adjusted are used to analyse the behaviour of labour markets in Spain. Our research indicates that substantial wage convergence happened from 1850 to 1914 with low rates of internal migration. The shock of World War I and the subsequent globalisation backlash appear to disrupt this process provoking a spectacular increase in wage dif...

FieldAlexander J., ClarkGregory y SundstromWilliam A. (eds). Research in Economic History 22. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2004, pp. 325. - Volume 22 Issue 3 - Joan R. Roses

Este artículo tiene dos objetivos principales. Primero, , ofrece una descripción estilizada de la evolución de la industria catalana entre 1830 y 1861. Segundo, revisa dicho proceso en el contexto español y por consiguiente, nos permite establecer la importancia relativa de dicha experiencia. Por tanto se ocupa principalmente .del calculo y análisi...

This paper presents a new regional database on real wages for Spain from 1850 to 1930. This evidence is used to analyze the evolution of wages across regions and occupations. Substantial wage convergence occurred from 1850 to 1914, despite low rates of internal migration. World War I and the subsequent globalization backlash were associated with a...

Spain provides an opportunity to study the causes of regional differences in industrial development over the nineteenth century. As transportation costs decreased and barriers to domestic trade were eliminated, Spanish manufacturing became increasingly concentrated in a few regions. This article combines Heckscher-Ohlin and economic geography frame...

This paper has two main objectives. First, it provides a stylised description of the Catalan industrial path of the period 1830-1861. Second, it reviews the evolution of the Catalan industry in the Spanish context and, thus, can serve to describe the relative importance of the Catalan industrial experience. Consequently, it is mainly devoted to com...

MartínRafael Domínguez: La riqueza de las regiones. Las desigualdades económicas regionales en España, 1700–2000, Madrid, Alianza Editorial, 2002, 403 pp., contiene apéndices y bibliografía. - Volume 21 Issue 1 - Joan R. Rosés

Income distribution has been a main topic in economics since the days of Gregory King and William Petty. In this paper some empirical issues in the study of labor income are surveyed in the light of economic history, including the hypothesis of the stability of factor shares across time and space and the relative importance of raw labor and human c...

CraigLee A. y FisherDouglas: The European Macroeconomy: Growth, Integration and Cycles, 1500–1913, Cheltenham, Gran Bretaña y Northampton, MA, Estados Unidos, Edward Elgar, 2000, xii + 389 pp., contiene índices y bibliografía, $ 120. - Volume 20 Issue 2 - Joan R. Rosés

This study investigates the productivity differences and its sources across a set of banks during the last years of the liberal era of the Spanish banking system (1900-1914). These years were characterised by major qualitative and quantitative changes in the banking industry including a sharp increase in the size of the system, in the number of fir...

RESUMEN Con el fin de explicar las grandes diferencias de precios entre los tejidos de algodón británicos y españoles, este artículo se ocupa de medir el coste de las materias primas y estimar los niveles de productividad total de los factores (PTF) en ambos países. Ambos cálculos sugieren una relación directa entre la falta de competitividad inter...

RESUMEN Empleando el método DEA para la medición de la productividad y el índice Malmquist, este artículo investiga las diferencias en productividad, y las causas de las mismas, en una muestra de bancos en los últimos años del período «liberal» de la banca española (1900–1914) que se caracterizaron por una serie de cambios cualitativos y cuantitati...

AghionPhilippe y HowittPeter: Endogenous Growth Theory, Cambridge (MA), MIT Press, 1997, 694 pp., contiene índices y bibliografía, 6.700 pesetas. - Volume 18 Issue 3 - Joan R. Rosés

RuizJosé Luis García (coordinador), AlonsoHilario Casado, GómezPedro Fatjó y Romero-BalmasGregorio Núñez: Historia de la empresa mundial y de España, Madrid, Síntesis, 1998, 351 pp., gráficos y bibliografía. - Volume 17 Issue 1 - Joan R. Rosés

The article argues that for a region adopting a technology from elsewhere, an existing stock of (relevant) human capital was essential to the rapid and successful adoption of the technology. But once the technology has been fully assimilated, increments to human capital would not be expected to be important in its further growth. Thus, Catalan indu...

Between 1850 and 2000, Spain's real income increased by about 40-fold, at an average rate of 2.5 percent. The sources of this long-run growth are investigated using Jorgenson-type growth accounting analysis. We find that growth upsurges are closely related to increases in TFP. Spanish economic growth went through three successive phases. The centur...

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 sh...

During the 1910s and the 1920s, a rapid growth in real wages was accompanied by a significant decrease in gender wage gaps. This paper is a first attempt to asses the power of several alternative explanations of the observed relative wages changes in the context of a theoretical framework that nests all of these explanations. Our preliminary conclu...

The regions of Spain provide a unique opportunity to study the causes of regional differences in industrial development because manufacturing concentration and regional specialization rose substantially during the early phases of industrialization. I employ a model nesting HeckscherOhlin and Economic Geography Frameworks to study that phenomenon, a...

A land reform involving the breaking!up of large Southern estates was a central issue in Spain during the first decades of the 20 th century. It was justified on grounds of economic efficiency, social equity and the distribution of political power. Empirical analysis of the economic reasons for such major policy reform is, however, scant and often...

In Spain, land reform involving the break-up of large southern estates was a central issue during the first decades of the twentieth century. It was justified on the grounds of economic efficiency, social equity and the distribution of political power. This paper uses new provincial data on landless workers, land prices and agrarian wages to consid...

This paper is motivated by the attempt to understand the choice of technology in the cotton mills in the Mediterranean basin from 1830 to 1861. In the period before the I cotton famine I, alternative technological choices were relatively important. However, these technology alternatives cannot be interpreted without consideration heterogeneity of c...

Con el fin de explicar las grandes diferencias de precios entre los tejidos de algodón británicos y españoles, este articulo se ocupa de medir el coste de las materias primas y estimar los niveles de productividad total de los factores (PTF) en ambos países. Ambos cálculos sugieren una relación directa entre la falta de competitividad internacional...

Este artículo tiene dos objetivos principales. Primero, ofrece una descripción estilizada de la evolución de la industria catalana entre 1830 y 1861. Segundo, revisa dicho proceso en el contexto español y, por consiguiente, nos permite establecer la importancia relativa de dicha experiencia. Por tanto, se ocupa principalmente del cálculo y análisis...

Publicado

Ara fa cent anys, la banca catalana va inicíar la crisi que la portaria a perdre la seva primacía dins del sistema bancari espanyol. Una primacia iniciada a mitjan segle XIX gracíes a la supremacia organitzativa i de capital de les seves entitats bancaries i a la importancia financera de Barcelona. Les característiques de la seva modemització, les...

En: Explorations in economic history. Oct. 2004. N. 4, pags 404-425, ISSN. 0014-4983