18/2023 Leandro Prados de la Escosura

This text offers a comprehensive and nuanced view of the economic development of Spain since 1850. It provides a new set of historical GDP estimates for Spain from the demand and supply sides, and presents a reconstruction of production and expenditure series for the century prior to the introduction of modern national accounts. The author splices available national accounts sets over the period 1958–2015 through interpolation, as an alternative to conventional retropolation. The resulting national accounts series are linked to the historical estimates providing yearly series for GDP and its components since 1850. On the basis of new population estimates, the author derives GDP per head, decomposed into labour productivity and the amount of work per person, and placed into international perspective.

With theoretical reasoning and historiographical implications, Prados de la Escosura provides a useful methodological reference work for anyone interested in national accounting.

Link to book: https://www.palgrave.com/la/book/9783319580418

Leandro Prados de la Escosura (2017), Spanish Economic Growth, 1850-2015 (London: Palgrave Macmillan)