Changes in Spanish industrial location, 1850-1936. A study from the New Ecomomic Geography

Abstract

In this article we analyze the changes in the specialization and the location of industry in Spain in the period 1850-1936 and we propose a hypothesis on its determinants. The construction of various indicators of the regional productive specialization allows us to verify the growth in the industrial specialization of Spanish regions during the second half of the 19th century, but not in the first third of the 20th century. Furthermore, we show that the large territorial inequalities that accompanied industrial progress in the second half of the 19th century were not reduce in the first third of the 20th century. However, during this second period there was an important change in the specific location of the industry with the relative rise of locations such as Madrid and Zaragoza. Finally, we analyze and propose an explanation to this evidence following the theoretical predictions of the New Economic Geography.