Growth Recurring in a Preindustrial Economy

On the basis of new yearly estimates of output and population, Spain’s economic performance from the late thirteenth century to mid-nineteenth century can be shown to be a succession of growing and shrinking phases without long-term net gains in average income. The simultaneous behaviour of per capita income and population is consistent with the existence of a frontier economy in which natural resources are abundant and population scarce, and precludes a Malthusian interpretation. A long phase of sustained growth and lower inequality ended in the 1570s and gave way to another period of sluggish growth and higher inequality. Growth and decline and long-term stagnation are explained by individual and collective economic decisions under institutional constraints.