BUSCADOR RECOLECTA

The objective of this study was to analyse, from a long-term perspective, the factors determining the process of the internationalisation of the Spanish agrifood industry. The paper concentrates on the empirical verification of the existence of a home market effect in the food and drink industries in Spain and on the effects on trade flows of integration into the European Union. With this aim in mind, we took into account the latest contributions to the estimation of the gravity equation for a sample of export flows from 13 agrifood subsectors between 1970 and 2012, with a destination of 175 markets. From the results of the study the existence of the “home market effect” stands out as the determining factor of the increasing process of internationalisation in the majority of the subsectors of the food industry. On this point, the presence of this effect is remarkable in the most dynamic industries, where the process of restructuring caused by the development of the internal market was more intense. Furthermore, the influence of the process of European integration has been shown by the literature to be a very important factor. Our results qualify in part the results of previous studies, since the positive effect appeared later than expected. The positive effects did not appear until the completion of the process of transition by the dismantling of the barriers established in the treaty of accession to the European Union.

Understanding a firm's internationalization process, including entry mode decisions, has attracted increasing attention from the literature in international business. However, most of the existing literature on exportation by agri-food firms examines single-stage decision making processes based on the decision of whether or not to export, which export mode to use (direct versus indirect export), or both of them simultaneously, with three independent alternatives. This article researches the impact of internet use on entry mode decisions of exporting agri-food firms. In this new context, we propose that the Internet influences the entry mode decision and that the decision regarding exporting and the choice of export channels are nested decisions. The results show a positive effect of internet use on the propensity to export. The empirical evidence of the paper also supports the existence of a nested structure.

In the second half of the twentieth century, Latin American countries lost a substantial part of their importance in worldwide exports of agricultural and food products. Given this context, the objective of this article is to analyse the determinants of the evolution of agricultural exports from Latin America, paying special attention to the influence of regional processes of economic integration on exports and to their degree of participation in intra-industrial trade. We propose a gravity model with a data panel of total exports and product groups for six Latin American countries towards 39 destinations between 1963 and 2000.

Este trabajo analiza la evolución del comercio agroalimentario español en el período en el que han tenido lugar las más hondas transformaciones de la economía española, la segunda mitad del siglo XX y la primera década del XXI. Se estudia la evolución de las exportaciones e importaciones agroalimentarias españolas desde 1951 y hasta 2011, así como el saldo de la balanza comercial correspondiente. También se siguen en detalle los cambios en la composición de las compras y ventas exteriores para este tipo de productos, como un reflejo de los cambios económicos de fondo. Para las exportaciones se realiza un ejercicio econométrico para evaluar sus principales determinantes en el caso español. Las conclusiones apuntan hacia una mayor diversificación y transformación de los productos comerciados, tras las cuales se hallan, a nivel microeconómico, la mejora en la renta y los cambios en las preferencias, y a nivel macroeconómico, el fuerte efecto de la integración de España en el Mercado Común desde 1986 y el desarrollo de la agroindustria al crecer el tamaño del mercado interior (home market effect).

The principal objective of the present study is to explain the changes in the direction of agri-food trade flows during the second half of the twentieth century. Since the end of the Second World War, trade has tended to be concentrated among developed countries, breaking the pattern of complementarity among industrialized countries and developing countries from the first wave of globalization. Elsewhere, agricultural exports from developing countries to countries of similar income have significantly increased since the 1990s. To compare and explain the evolution of different trade directions, the present article estimates the gravity equation for the bilateral volume of agri-food trade, analyzed separately in four categories of trade flows based on the development level of countries. Specifically, we have used the UN-COMTRADE database to construct a data panel for bilateral trade among 30 reporting countries and 39 partner countries with a significant presence in international markets for the period 1963–2000. The following conclusions can be extracted from the present study. Firstly, while other types of trade, such as manufactures, enjoyed greater multilateral liberalization of their markets, strong market intervention caused them to base their growth on the proliferation and success of regional trade agreements in the North. As a result, agri-food trade concentrated progressively on developed economies. Secondly, the latest liberalization of some preferential trade agreements gave rise to new increases in agricultural trade, this time in South–South flows. Finally, the negative sign of income demand elasticity for imports of agricultural products from Southern countries demonstrates that the latter behaved like inferior goods and also explains why the export growth of such countries suffered a brake on such expansion.

The objective of this study is to make a further contribution to the debate on the causes of economic growth in the European Continent. It explains why agricultural labour productivity differences did not converge between 1950 and 2005 in Europe. We propose an econometric model, one combining both proximate and fundamental causes of economic growth. The results show that the continuous exit of labour power from the sector, coupled with the increased use of productive factors originating in other sectors of the economy, caused the efficiency of agricultural workers to rise. However, we offer a complete explanation of the role played by institutions and geographical factors. Thus, we detect a direct and inverse relation between membership of the EU and the Communist bloc and the productivity of agricultural labour. In addition, strong support for agriculture affected productivity negatively.

Why were products such as meat or milk relatively unimportant in the diet of European Mediterranean populations up until the 1960s? Conventional wisdom has it that this was a consequence of the environmental and macroeconomic conditions prevailing in the region, which basically involved aridity and economic backwardness. This article examines the case of dairy products in Spain in the 1950s and early 1960s; it then proposes a modified view in which environmental and macroeconomic factors are considered in conjunction with the political economy of the food chain and consumer agency. Even after considering the environmental constraints to production of cow''s milk and the obstacle posed by low household incomes, dairy consumption could have grown faster than it did. While consumer response to increased purchasing power was relatively passive, a rise in the relative price of milk cancelled out some of the income effect derived from rapid economic growth. This suggests that, in line with conventional wisdom, there were both supply-side and demand-side obstacles to increasing consumption of dairy products. Contrary to conventional wisdom, in this case supply-side obstacles were not primarily related to dairy farming but to other links in the chain, particularly commercial intermediation, while demand-side obstacles were not primarily quantitative, but qualitative.

En este artículo analizamos los efectos que la reforma sanitaria tuvo sobre el bienestar biológico y la salud de las poblaciones españolas durante el proceso de industrialización. Examinamos el caso de Alcoy, una de las ciudades pioneras de la industrialización española. Los presupuestos municipales en salud pública y los datos de estatura de los reemplazos militares constituyen las principales fuentes para su estudio. Los resultados muestran que los comienzos de la reforma sanitaria, a finales del siglo XIX, supusieron una mejora no sólo de las condiciones ambientales y de salubridad de la ciudad, sino también del estado de salud de su población residente. Hasta que los políticos liberales no incrementaron las dotaciones presupuestarias en el campo de la salud pública y las infraestructuras urbanas, Alcoy sufrió los lastres iniciales del urban penalty con secuelas negativas que se manifestaron directamente en el aumento de la morbi-mortalidad y la caída de la estatura. Los datos sugieren una relación positiva entre políticas activas de salud pública y bienestar biológico.

This article analyses the effects of the sanitary reform on the biological welfare and the Health of the Spanish population during the industrialization process. Examines the case of Alcoy, one of the pioneer hubs of the Spanish industrialization. The main sources of the study are the municipality budgets of Public Health and the stature of the conscripts. Results show that the starting of the sanitary reform, in the late 19th, meant not only an improvement of the conditions and the salubrity of the city, but of the resident''s state of health. Until the liberal politicians did not increase the public health and the urban infrastructures assignments on the Budgets, Alcoy suffered the initial problems of the urban penalty, with negative effects that were revealed directly in the increasing morbi-mortality and the falling stature. Data suggest a positive correlation between active public health politics and biological welfare.

The attraction of foreign-born immigrants to rural areas in developed countries has aroused growing interest in recent years. The central issue in this study is the demographic impact of immigration in rural Spain, focusing on depopulated areas. The economic and demographic consequences of depopulation have become major concerns, and the arrival of international migrants has come to be seen as a possible solution. The aim of this study is to add to a literature in which qualitative research and local or regional perspectives predominate. The present research draws on quantitative findings for a significant part of Spain. The evidence in this study is principally based on population figures for the last years of the 20th century, a period of low immigration to Spain, and the early years of the 21st century, when the inflow of foreign migrants gathered intensity. We also explore the early consequences of the present economic crisis, which began in 2008. The analysis is based on estimates of native and foreign-born population growth for a range of territorial aggregations. Counterfactual techniques are also used. The results show that the arrival of immigrants has so far contributed substantially to reducing and even halting or reversing depopulation. A further series of analyses concentrates on the potential of rural areas to retain immigrants in the long run. The study also recommends a comprehensive policy approach in this regard.

Very few empirical studies have analysed the labour market performance of migrants in European countries in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This article uses a rich new micro-dataset to examine the occupational attainment of migrants, mostly internal migrants, in the city of Barcelona, a key destination from the late nineteenth century onwards, adding to the literature on internal migrations in Spain during the period of industrialization. The study shows that the occupational outcomes achieved by early migrants tended to match those of natives, the reference group. However, some groups of migrants who arrived at the end of the period covered by the study show poorer outcomes than natives. The relative underachievement of these groups is explained by changes in the type of migrants and in the characteristics of the labour market. Our estimates also suggest that Spanish migrants did not experience upward occupational mobility after settling in Barcelona.

This article considers new technologies and fatal accident rates in European coal mining from 1850 to 1900. Its contributions are twofold: to recover and emphasize improvements in small-scale mine technologies such as safety lamps and ventilation, and, second, to deny any role at this time for later macroinventions such as electrification and mechanization. We discuss the influence of these safety-improving technologies as well as government regulations on different kinds of fatal accident rates. It is proposed that an important and overlooked source of the reduction in fatalities from certain kinds of accidents was the introduction and diffusion of a variety of safety-related technologies, none of particularly large scale.