Spain and Its Neighbours: An International Comparison

Abstract

This chapter analyses whether the evolution of regional inequality in Spain—in terms of the levels reached and characterization of the major stages involved in its growth or reduction—matches that seen in most of the south-western European economic area. To this end new evidence on the historical evolution of territorial inequality in a significant area of Europe comprising all regions of Portugal, Spain, France and Italy is provided. From the analysis performed it can be gathered that the main patterns observed in the evolution of inequality throughout the economic development process in Spain accurately reflect what happened in all four states as a whole.

Appendix

Regional Data

GDP and Population:

• France:

The data for the 84 NUTS3 regions come from various sources. The départements d’outre-mer are excluded, as is Corsica in 1860, 1900 and 1930. Furthermore, because Alsace, Lorraine and a small area of the Vosges were part of the German Empire between the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) and the First World War (1914–1918), for the sake of consistency we have excluded the Alsace departments (Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin) and the territory of Belfort (included in Haut-Rhin), which remained part of France. The Treaty of Frankfurt (1871) established that most of the Moselle department in Lorraine was to be German, along with some parts of Meurthe. The remains of these departments formed a smaller version of the former Lorraine under the name Meurthe-et-Moselle. Hence we exclude Moselle but include Meurthe-et-Moselle. Finally, we have merged Seine and Seine-et-Oise to form Paris (Seine). We assumed that the regional shares in 1860 were equivalent to those in 1870. We then computed our values for 1880 and 1890 based on the work by Guillaume Bazot. No data are available for 1940, so we make an interpolation.

1860 (1870), 1896, 1930::

Combes et al. (2011)

1880, 1890::

Bazot (2014)

1911, 1921::

Díez-Minguela and Sanchis (2017)

1954, 1962, 1975::

Rosés and Sanchis (forthcoming)

1982::

Eurostat

1990, 2000, 2007::

INSEE, Comptes régionaux. Base 2010

• Italy:

The data for the 20 NUTS2 regions with current borders come from Felice (2015, Table A.2.3). Although today Italy comprises 21 NUTS2 regions, in the dataset Bolzano is merged with the region of Trentino-Alto Adige. GDP data are provided on a decadal basis for years ending in 1, from 1871 to 2011 (with the exception of 1938 for 1940/1941). We would like to thank Emanuele Felice for kindly sharing data with us.

• Portugal :

The data for the 18 historical district regions between 1890 and 1980 were calculated on a decadal basis (excluding Madeira-Azores). These were compiled from the original dataset in Badia-Miró et al. (2012). We would like to thank Marc Badia-Miró, Jordi Guilera and Pedro Lains for kindly sharing data with us and also for providing us with estimates for 1990–2010. For these later years the authors distributed the GDP for Portuguese NUTS2 regions among the historical districts on the basis of population size and the NUTS2 regions to which the municipalities comprising these districts belonged. Regional historical GDP estimates for 1870 and 1880 are not available, so we assume that the shares of regional GDP in 1870 and 1880 would have been equivalent to those for 1890, the first year for which estimates are available.

• Spain:

The data for the 49 NUTS3 regions or provinces between 1860 and 2010 were compiled on a decadal basis (excluding Ceuta and Melilla) but computing the two Canary Island provinces as one, which gives us the current 50 provinces. The data are from various sources: see Rosés et al. (2010), Martinez-Galarraga et al. (2015) and Tirado et al. (2016).

National Data

GDP Per Capita:

• Maddison Project Database (Bolt and Van Zanden 2014).

Population:

• 1850–1950: Maddison: http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/oriindex.htm.

• 1950–2010: Total Economy Database: https://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/.