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 preindustrial 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.T he 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)

How has wellbeing evolved over time and across regions? How does the West compare to the Rest? What explains their differences? These questions are addressed using a historical index of human development. A sustained improvement in world wellbeing has taken place since 1870. The absolute gap between OECD and the Rest widened over time, but an incomplete catching up—largely explained by education—occurred between 1913 and 1970. As the health transition was achieved in the Rest, the contribution of life expectancy to human development improvement declined and the Rest fell behind in terms of longevity. Meanwhile, in the OECD, as longevity increased, healthy years expanded. A large variance in human development is noticeable in the Rest since 1970, with East Asia, Latin America, and North Africa catching up to the OECD, and Central and Eastern Europe and Sub‐Saharan Africa falling behind.

Economic rather than political forces appear to dominate inequality trends in Spain. Inequality evolution fits a Kuznets curve. Wars increased inequality but had non-permanent effects, while progressive taxation had no impact until 1980, at odds with Atkinson, Piketty, Saez and associates' findings. A substantial fall in absolute poverty resulted from growth but also from inequality reduction in the interwar period and the late 1950s. Rising inequality and extreme poverty are not found at the roots of the Spanish Civil War. Between the mid 1950s and 1974, inequality contraction and absolute poverty eradication represented a major departure from Latin America's performance while matching the OECD's.

In this paper a new set of current price estimates of per capita income, adjusted for each currency's purchasing power, is presented for a sample of mainly OECD countries during more than one and a half centuries. A short-cut method is used to derive current price comparisons for countries and periods in which aggregate PPPs are not available. Current price estimates of PPP-adjusted GDP appear to be more economically sound than constant price figures as economic agents react to current, not to constant, prices, and, therefore, would allow more appropriate cross-country comparisons of productivity and welfare. Country rankings in the new data set are different from those provided by earlier cross-country comparisons; among the new finding earlier U.S. leadership and the closer relative position of Britain and France over the 19th century can be highlighted.Widespread renewed efforts to produce historical national accounts have rendered many widely used data sets obsolete. Drawing on this research, economic historians have constructed new historical comparisons of product per head across countries by extrapolating present-day levels of GDP per person adjusted for differences in purchasing power backward with volume indices of product per

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 century before 1950 was characterized by slow growth driven by factor accumulation. TFP improvements pushed up explosive growth during the Golden Age and mitigated the deceleration during the transition to democracy years . Since the accession to the European Union Spain has experienced a dramatic productivity slowdown. Keywords AbstractBetween 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 century before 1950 was characterized by slow growth driven by factor accumulation. TFP improvements pushed up explosive growth during the Golden Age and mitigated the deceleration during the transition to democracy years . Since the accession to the European Union Spain has experienced a dramatic productivity slowdown.