The management of agricultural estates in Catalonia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. An approach through bookkeeping

Ramón Garrabou (), Jordi Planas () and Enric Saguer ()
Additional contact information
Ramón Garrabou: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Jordi Planas: Universitat de Barcelona
Enric Saguer: Universitat de Girona

Documentos de Trabajo de la Sociedad de Estudios de Historia Agraria from Sociedad de Estudios de Historia Agraria

Abstract: The aim of this study is to analyse the management of rural estates during the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century using basically the expenditure registered in bookkeeping records. The information collected proceeds from eight private archives, and from them we have reconstructed a total of ten series of bookkeeping records which describe a group of farms spread throughout the main agricultural zones of Catalonia (Spain). The changes in the quantities provided by the landowners towards the running costs can help us to understand their role in the processes of growth and intensification of agricultural production. We show that, while the level of investment they made was modest, the landownwers did not behave like absentee landlords or idly live off their rents. The examples analysed give us some insight into the rationale behind some of the landowners' decisions and the diverse responses that they adopted according to the circumstances and the prevailing social and environmental conditions on their estates. The accounting records have proved to be a valuable source in this sense.

Keywords: landowners; sharecropping; management of rural estates; bookkeeping records; agriculture; Catalonia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q12 Q15 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2010-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://repositori.uji.es/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10 ... aguer.pdf?sequence=1 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not found (http://repositori.uji.es/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10234/15113/DT%20Garrabou%2c%20Planas%2c%20and%20Saguer.pdf?sequence=1 [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://repositori.uji.es/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10234/15113/DT%20Garrabou,%20Planas,%20and%20Saguer.pdf?sequence=1)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:seh:wpaper:1005

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Documentos de Trabajo de la Sociedad de Estudios de Historia Agraria from Sociedad de Estudios de Historia Agraria Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Antonio Linares ().