Alexandra Lopez Cermeno

Associate senior lecturer

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

Author

Alexandra L. Cermeño
Carlos Santiago Caballero

Summary, in English

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.

Department/s

Department of Economic History

Publishing year

2020

Language

English

Publication/Series

Working Papers in Economic History

Issue

2020-02

Links

Document type

Working paper

Publisher

Working papers in Economic History, Departamento de Historica Economica e Instituciones, Instituto Figuerola de historia y ciencias socials, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Topic