Growth Recurring in a Preindustrial Economy

Leandro Prados de la Escosura ()

Chapter Chapter 2 in A Millennial View of Spain’s Development, 2024, pp 27-90 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract On the basis of new yearly estimates of output and population, Spain’s economic performance from the late thirteenth century to mid-nineteenth century can be shown to be a succession of growing and shrinking phases without long-term net gains in average income. The simultaneous behaviour of per capita income and population is consistent with the existence of a frontier economy in which natural resources are abundant and population scarce, and precludes a Malthusian interpretation. A long phase of sustained growth and lower inequality ended in the 1570s and gave way to another period of sluggish growth and higher inequality. Growth and decline and long-term stagnation are explained by individual and collective economic decisions under institutional constraints.

Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:frochp:978-3-031-60792-9_2

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-60792-9_2

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