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Chapter 1. Introduction. A Millennial View of Spain's Development -- Part I: Growth and Well-being -- Chapter 2. Growth Recurring in Preindustrial Economy -- Chapter 3. Capital Accumulation -- Chapter 4. Productivity Growth -- Chapter 5. Inequality and Poverty -- Part II. Spain in the Global Economy -- Chapter 6. The Loss of the American Empire -- Chapter 7. The Terms of Trade between Spain and Britain and the Industrial Revolution -- Chapter 8. Spain's Financial Position during the First Globalization.

This open access book presents the evolution of the Spanish economy over the past seven centuries since the end of the Reconquest and examines how much economic progress has Spain achieved, as well as its impact on living standards and income distribution over the very long run. It shows that preindustrial Spain was far from stagnant, although levels of output per head in the early nineteenth century were not much different from those on the eve of the Black Death (1348). It further discusses how phases of simultaneous per capita output and population expansion and shrinkage alternated, lending support to the recurring growth and frontier economy hypotheses. While a collapse in the 1570s gave way to sluggish growth and higher inequality after a long phase of sustained growth and lower inequality, the book shows how real per capita income has improved substantially over the last two centuries, driven by increased labor productivity, and derived from more intense andefficient use of physical and human capital per worker. Presenting exposure to international competition as a stimulus for this development, the book sheds light on the underperformance of Spain up to 1950 in a European comparison and describes the catch-up of Spain's economy with more advanced countries until 2007. Finally, the book explains how modern economic growth is associated with an increase in the material well-being of its inhabitants, as the most dynamic economic phases of the last century have been associated with an improvement in income distribution, although the relationship between growth and inequality has not been linear. This book is a must-read for students, researchers, and scholars of economics and economic history interested in a better understanding of cliometrics, long-run analyses, economic development, economic growth, as well as the Spanish economy.

AbstractA long‐run view of well‐being over the last one‐and‐a‐half centuries is presented using an Augmented Human Development Index (AHDI) that combines achievements in health, education, material living standards, and political freedom. The AHDI shows substantial gains in world human development since 1870, although significant room for improvement still remains. The AHDI spread unevenly until 1960, in absolute terms, and up to 1929 in relative ones, and reversed this trend thereafter. The main relative gain went to world countries' middle class, but the main absolute gain accrued to the top decile. AHD trends and distribution do not match, but compare favourably with, those in per capita income. The absolute gap between present‐day advanced countries and the rest of the world deepened over time, though fell in relative terms. Life expectancy has led progress in AHD, particularly until 1970, and drove the catching‐up by the rest of the world during the epidemiological transition. Political and civil liberties took over thereafter.

The study of international well-being and its distribution remains focused on income. This paper addresses multidimensional well-being from a capabilities perspective during the last one-and-a-half centuries. Relative inequality (population-weighted) fell in health and education since the late 1920s, due to the globalisation of mass schooling and the health transition, but only dropped from 1970 onwards in terms of political and civil liberties, and declined since 1900 for augmented human development. These results are at odds with per capita income inequality that rose over time and only shrank from 1990 onwards. Relative and absolute well-being distribution behaved differently, with the distance between countries shrinking in relative terms but widening in absolute terms. Countries in the middle and lower deciles of the world distribution achieved the largest relative gain over the last century. Education and political and civil liberties were the main contributors to the evolution of augmented human development inequality, although longevity made a substantial contribution until the 1920s.

En vísperas de la Gran Recesión, la desigualdad había aumentado durante tres décadas en los países desarrollados. Simultáneamente, la libertad económica era más elevada que en cualquier época anterior. ¿Existe un dilema entre preservar la libertad de los individuos y reducir la desigualdad? No se comprueba, sin embargo, una asociación a largo plazo entre libertad económica y desigualdad en los actuales países avanzados. Se advierte, no obstante, una correlación entre libertad económica y concentración del ingreso en períodos específicos y en países anglosajones