María-Isabel Ayuda

From locational fundamentals to increasing returns: the spatial concentration of population in Spain, 1787–2000

Why is population not evenly distributed throughout a country’s territory? This paper focuses on the case of Spain, in order to empirically test two complementary theoretical explanations: (a) first nature advantages or locational fundamentals; and (b) second nature advantages or increasing returns. We estimate population density and population growth equations for the case of Spain between 1787 and 2000. Our results suggest that locational fundamentals explain the distribution of population prior to industrialization and that industrialization reinforced the pre-existing regional population disparities, especially as the share of increasing-returns sectors in the Spanish economy became significant. Finally, we perform an ANOVA analysis which shows that although in the pre-industrial economy first nature advantages were the most important in explaining the growth in provincial population densities, these were progressively superseded by the influence of first via second nature effects.

The political economy of the wine trade: Spanish exports and the international market, 1890–1935

At the end of the nineteenth century some of the less developed countries of Southern Europe often faced major problems when they sought to increase their exports of primary products. Such problems were a consequence of the tariff policies implemented by a number of their trading partners. In this article we analyse the case of the Spanish exports of ordinary table wine during the period 1890–1935. The expansion of wine production outside Europe meant that some countries in the American continent raised their tariffs to protect national production, which caused serious damage to exporters. Much more serious was the discriminatory trade policy initiated by France in 1891 which gave priority to the tariff-free importing of Algerian wine, as against the high tariffs that had to be paid by other exporters. This policy, as well as protecting French production, aimed to support her colonial policy in Algeria and seriously affected Spanish exports, as shown by our data and the econometric analysis we have carried out. The Spanish response resulted in a greater penetration of other European markets, thanks to the competitiveness of Spanish wine, but this did not prevent a serious crisis in the sector.

Taking advantage of globalization? Spain and the building of the international market in Mediterranean horticultural products, 1850–1935

This article examines how globalization and industrialization offered the nations of the European periphery opportunities to develop exports in sectors where they enjoyed a comparative advantage. As a case in point, we consider Spanish exports of Mediterranean horticultural products (MHP). Two bi-equational export supply and demand models (an equilibrium and a disequilibrium model) are proposed, in which volumes and prices are determined simultaneously, to throw light on the main causes of Spains expanding exports of MHP. The results clearly reflect the primacy of rightward shifts in the supply and demand curves in explaining the growth of MHP trade by volume. Thus, both rising incomes in the more developed countries and technological change in agriculture specializing in these products were key to the growth of this trade. Meanwhile, Spanish exporters also benefited from the increasing integration of international markets, especially through declining transport costs and, to a lesser extent, trade liberalization.

Determinants of height and biological inequality in Mediterranean Spain, 1859–1967

This article analyses not only the determinants of the height of Spains male populations between 1859 and 1960 but also the influence that social inequality had upon biological well-being. The height data of 82,039 conscripts constitute the principal source for this analysis. The study area comprises the current Valencian region, located in central Mediterranean Spain. During the period under study, the average height of conscripts increased by 7.5cm, while the coefficient of variation decreased by 0.6 between the 1870s and 1930 indicating that height inequality declined, although it increased by 0.2 among the cohorts born during the period of Francoist regime. Our results show that, in the long run, the height and biological well-being of the populations conscripted in Mediterranean Spain were determined by socioeconomic status and environmental contexts: that there was a close correlation among education, occupation, income, and stature. Literate conscripts were always taller than illiterate ones (by nearly 1cm), and agricultural workers, with fewer economic resources, were significantly shorter (by 3.6cm) than highly qualified non-manual workers.

Market dynamism and international trade: a case study of Mediterranean agricultural products, 1850-1935

This article concentrates on analysing the rightward shifts of the demand curve for Mediterranean agricultural products from 1850 to 1938. We have found that such shifts were especially conditioned by the different income elasticities of demand and by changes or otherwise, in consumer preferences. Our aim is to show that there was an initial conditioning factor for the producer countries to take full advantage of these potential growth opportunities, namely the size of such shifts.

The International Wine Market, 1850–1938

The purpose of this article is to analyze the international wine market between 1850 and 1938. During this period, the less-developed countries of southern Europe participated in international trade, mainly as exporters of primary products and importers of manufactured goods. For these countries, the export of wine represented a sizeable proportion of this trade. The study of the market for this type of product is essential in order for us to better understand the opportunities made available to these countries from the development of a wine export sector specializing in production to supply the markets of the industrialized countries.

A Monte Carlo study to compare two recent modifications of the KPSS test for near integration

The objective of this article is to compare the size and power properties of two modifications of the KPSS test of Kwiatkowski et al. (1992) proposed by Sul et al. (2005) and by Harris et al. (2007), using Monte Carlo simulations, in order to decide which version to use in applied research. The two modifications have been proposed to deal with those cases in which the null hypothesis specifies that the time series is near integrated, in the sense that it is very close to the alternative hypothesis of a unit root. It has been shown in the literature that in these cases the KPSS test tends to over-reject the null hypothesis. The modification by Sul et al. (2005) is based on an alternative long-run variance estimator. Harris et al. (2007) propose applying the KPSS test to the filtered series instead of to the original series. We conclude that the test based on the transformation proposed by Sul et al. outperforms the test based on the transformation proposed by Harris et al.

Size and power of non-nested hypothesis tests and their bootstrap versions

In this paper the behaviour of various non-nested hypothesis testing procedures are studied, namely the J and JA tests and the same bootstrap-adjusted tests, using graphical methods. These methods are the P value plot, the P value discrepancy plot and the size-power graph. The size and power of the four tests are compared for all the possible nominal sizes and not only for 1% or 5%. It is found that the best test is the bootstrap-adjusted J test, given that its size is close to the nominal, independently of the nominal size, whilst it has a higher power than the JA test.

Power in non-nested models: a comparative study

The main objective of this letter is to compare two concepts of the power of a test developed in the literature on non-nested hypotheses. Using Monte Carlo techniques it is shown that both definitions of power are asymptotically equivalent, but for small samples they differ in some cases very dramatically.

Improving the Performance of a Long-Run Variance Ratio Test for a Unit Root

Abstract Cai and Shintani (2006, Econometric Theory, 22, 347–372) considered the impact of introducing an inconsistent long-run variance estimator when constructing a class of kernel-based ratio tests for testing non-stationarity in the series. They found that the quotient of two estimators with different rates of convergence under the null and the alternative hypotheses may lead to a test having an interesting size and power trade-off. This paper develops modified versions of this test, presents new asymptotic results and tabulates critical values. The finite sample performance is explored through Monte Carlo simulations. The results show that the modifications proposed lead to more powerful unit root tests.