All roads lead to market integration: lessons from a spatial analysis of the wheat market in 18th century Spain

Alexandra Cermeño and Carlos Santiago Caballero
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Carlos Santiago-Caballero

IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola

Abstract: This paper uses newly collected data from a large-scale census (Catastro de la Ensenada) to investigate the scale and causes of market integration in eighteenth century Spain. We use wheat prices observed in more than 5,200 municipalities to analyse the local spatial dependence of prices. We detect several regional clusters in the centre and coasts but find that these were not integrated with each other. We then investigate the first nature, second nature, and demand side determinants of these clusters and find that although geographical constrains like terrain roughness play a negatively significant role, the transportation network allowed connected municipalities to alleviate such obstacles. Our results suggest that unfavourable geographical conditions can be overcome by investments in transportation infrastructures.

Keywords: Early; Modern; Market; Integration; Grain; Markets; Prices; Geography (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-04-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-his, nep-tre and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cte:whrepe:30247

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