Concha Betrán

Skilled and unskilled wage differentials and economic integration, 1870–1930

In this article we analyse the differences between the wages of skilled and unskilled workers in the period 1870–1930 for five countries with different levels of development and economic integration: the USA, France, the UK, Italy and Spain. We have constructed a ratio of skilled to unskilled wages (the skill premium) in the industrial sector for all these countries with the exception of the USA, for which data were already available. We study the impact of globalisation, technological and structural change and labour movements on the skill premium growth rate. The main conclusion we obtain is that the globalisation variables (migration and trade) explain only part of this growth. Technological and structural change also had an impact on the skill premium growth rate. The main responses of governments to globalisation were trade and migration policies. But as trade and migration were and are not the only sources of inequality growth, other policies had and have to be implemented.

Financial crises in Spain: lessons from the last 150 years

Financial crises are not unique to current financial systems. Are crises alike? Have they become more frequent, longer lasting and more severe since the 20 th century? What does history tell us? The objective of this paper is to study the financial crises that have occurred in Spain over the last 150 years. We consider different types of crises (banking, currency and stock market crises), together with all their possible combinations, estimate their frequency by period and measure their length and depth. The main conclusion we obtain is that Spanish crises have been more frequent than in the rest of the world and have been more severe and more complex since 1973, as the 2007 crisis is confirming.

Natural resources, electrification and economic growth from the end of the nineteenth century until World War II

Las repercusiones de la nueva fuente de energia, electricidad, en el crecimiento economico de una muestra de paises -Estados Unidos, Reino Unido, Francia, Italia, Espana y Canada- caracterizados por sus diferentes dotaciones de recursos carboniferos es el principal objetivo de este articulo. La nueva energia, entre otras ventajas, redujo la dependencia de los recursos naturales de carbon al poder generarse a partir de diferentes energias primarias: agua o carbon. Con el fin de valorar la importancia de esta reduccion de la dependencia del carbon, se presenta una base de datos de los recursos energeticos para los seis paises, se muestra que los precios relativos de la electricidad frente al carbon fueron bajos en los paises con mala dotacion del segundo, y se detecta una relacion negativa entre el precio relativo electricidad-carbon y el crecimiento economico. Ademas hubo una relacion entre el ritmo de la electrificacion industrial en los paises sin dotacion de carbon, su tasa de inversion, el aumento de la productividad del trabajo, el crecimiento economico y del sector manufacturero, y el cambio estructural.

Comparing past and present wage inequality in two globalisation periods

Abstract This paper compares past and present globalisation with an aim to highlighting the different factors that drove wage inequality then and those which are doing so now. We have constructed a ratio of wage inequality for 15 countries in the first period of globalisation (1870–1913) and the subsequent period of deglobalisation (1914–1930) and then compare this pattern to wage inequality in the 1980s and 1990s. We propose that the difference in wage inequality trends for the two globalisation periods is due to migration and institutional factors (education and labour market institutions). These factors offset the increase in wage inequality produced by globalisation and technological change in the past, but do not appear to be acting in the present.

Labour market response to globalisation: spain, 1880-1913

This paper analyses the impact of globalisation (trade and migration) on the Spanish labour market between 1880 and 1913 by examining the influence that globalisation factors had on agricultural and industrial wages. Our results show that the nineteenth century grain invasion had a negative impact on agricultural wages, whereas the fall in wheat prices did not benefit industry workers. We also found that migration pushed up real agricultural and industrial wages. As agriculture was the main sector in the economy the final impact was a wage decrease. The negative impact of trade on agricultural and industrial labour markets partly explains the trade policy response of �integral protection�. However, other alternatives that would have been effective in raising living standards, such as migration policy, were not used

TWO GREAT BANKING CRISES AND THEIR ECONOMIC IMPACT COMPARED: SPAIN 1976/1977 AND 2008

The 1976/1977 crisis was the most severe in Spanish history, but the losses associated with the 2008 crisis are huge. This paper compares these two great banking crises and identifies the main parallels and differences between them. Is the current crisis as severe as that of 1976? What is the impact on the banking and financial sectors? We show that the 1976 crisis is being surpassed by the 2008 crisis in terms of the decline in GDP, industrial production and unemployment, and that these two events have had at least a similar impact in terms of output gap and output loss. Finally, the financial impact measured by different financial indicators confirms the greater severity of the 2008 crisis.