Patterns of Economic Retardation and Recovery in South-Western Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Patterns of Economic Retardation and Recovery in South-Western Europe in the Nineteenthand Twentieth CenturiesAuthor(s): Gabriel TortellaSource: The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Feb., 1994), pp. 1-21Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Economic History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2598218 .

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Economic History Review, XLVII, I(I994), pp. I-2I

Patterns of economic retardation and recovery in south-western Europe in the nineteenth and

twentieth centuries' By GABRIEL TORTELLA

Thy father bears the type of King of Naples, of both the Sicils and Jerusalem, yet not so wealthy as an English yeoman.

Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI, i.iv It is my belief that all the problems posed by the Mediterranean are of exceptional human richness, that they must therefore interest all historians and non-historians. I would go so far as to say that they serve to illumine our own century.

Braudel, The Mediterranean, p. I9

Ts there a specific Latin or south-west European pattern of economic modernization? A simple inspection of tables i and 2 and of figure i

would suggest that there is. The special characteristic of the south-western economies (Spain, Portugal, and Italy) seems to be their stagnation and backwardness in relation to north-western Europe during the nineteenth century, while in the twentieth century they grew rapidly and recovered most, if not all, of the ground lost.

We must first investigate the sources of the evidence presented in these tables and graphs. Table i is based on the calculations in classical works2 as recalculated by Prados, and sometimes linearly interpolated. Table 2 relates these income series to the combined British and French per caput income (hence the virtual mirror images of the British and French curves in figure i). Relative to the British-French norm, the Latin economies appear to have declined dramatically during the first half of the nineteenth century, almost held their own during the second half, begun a halting recovery from I900 to I930, sunk again-Spain especially-in I930-50, and partially caught up since then.

I This article was read as the Tawney Memorial Lecture at the annual meeting of the Economic History Society, University of Leicester, April I992. Its author wishes to thank S. Fenoaltea, A.O. Hirschman, J. Reis, and A. Tena for helpful comments on earlier drafts, and the editors of this journal and an anonymous referee for their useful suggestions about the present version. All remaining faults are his. Translations, unless otherwise specified, are also his.

2 Bairoch, 'Europe's gross national product'; Crafts, 'Patterns of development'; Ercolani, 'Docu- mentazione'; Justino, 'Evolugao'; idem, Formafao; Maddison, Phases; idem, 'Crecimiento econ6mico'; Markovitch, 'Industrie frangaise'; Prados, Comercio exterior; idem, De imperio a naci6n; Summers, Kravis, and Heston, 'International comparisons'; Summers and Heston, 'Improved international comparisons'; Summers and Heston, 'New set of international comparisons'; Valerio, 'Produto national'. The figures for Italy are an average of those in Ercolani, 'Documentazione', and in Maddison, 'Crecimiento econ6mico'. (C Economic History Society 1994. Published by Blackwell Publishers, io8 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 iEF, UK and 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02I42, USA.



2 GABRIEL TORTELLA

Table I. Per caput income in selected countries (US$ of 1970, adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity)

Year Spain Italy Great Britain France Germany Portugal I8oo 346 442 338 i8io 345 467 352 I820 343 49I 367 I830 342 379 5i6 38I 359 230 I840 353 407 6I3 44I 394 237

i850 364 435 7II 500 428 244 i86o 375 463 8o8 56o 463 25I I870 4I8 473 9I7 622 525 26I i88o 462 486 I,027 683 586 272 I890 505 500 I,I36 745 648 282 I900 557 6oi I,222 868 779 3II I9I0 6io 70I I,308 990 909 339 I920 704 777 I,387 I,I64 I,003 362 I930 798 856 I,466 I,337 I,097 385 I940 746 925 I,7I5 I,456 I,230 420 I950 694 982 I,964 I,575 I,363 456 I960 I,042 I,648 2,442 2,234 2,6I0 687 I970 I,904 2,653 3,043 3,508 3,74I I,403 I980 2,536 3,420 3,6I3 4,632 4,850 I,876

Source: As cited in n. 2, with interpolations.

Table 2. Per caput income in selected countries as percentage of combined British and French income

Year Spain Italy Great Britain France Germany Portugal i8oo 94 I20 92 i8io 89 I2I 9I I820 85 I2I 90 I830 8o 89 I2I 89 84 54 I840 70 8i I22 88 79 47 I850 63 75 I23 87 74 42 i86o 57 7I I23 86 7I 38 I870 56 64 I23 83 70 35 i88o 55 58 I23 82 70 33 I890 55 54 I23 8o 70 30 I900 54 58 II7 83 75 30 I910 53 6i II4 86 79 29 I920 55 6i io8 9I 78 28 I930 57 6i I04 95 78 27 I940 47 58 I07 9I 77 26 I950 39 55 II0 88 76 26 I960 44 70 I04 95 III 29 I970 58 8i 93 I07 II4 43 I980 62 83 88 II2 ii8 46

Source: Calculated from tab. I; additional population figures from Mitchell, European historical statistics, and World Bank, World tables.

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ECONOMIC RETARDATION AND RECOVERY 3

I25 -

\ . ~~~~~~Germany *ee

* ~~~~France

I 00 -i-' */

Great Britain ? q > s ~~~~~~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~~ t ~~~ Italy

75 -

v s * s _ .-. _ * Spain

So~~~~~-.I '\ / 50 - / Portugal

25_ ' ' ' ' ' '

i8oo i850 I900 I950 I980

Year

Figure I. Per caput income in selected European countries as a percentage of combined British and French income.

Source: tab. 2.

Table 3 lists the coefficients of determination (R2s) of simple ordinary least squares equations correlating the series of successive pairs of countries in table 2. It confirms the visual impression that there are two clear patterns of growth, northern and southern. The retardation of Britain from the end of the nineteenth century is reflected in negative correlation with Germany and with France. It is also clear that Italy is the most 'northern' of the Latin countries.

Table 3. Correlogram of the series in table 2

Germany France Great Britain Italy Spain France o.8i Great Britain -0-70 -0.76 Italy 0.32 0.29 -0.04 Spain 0.00 O.OI 0.I3 0.57 Portugal 0.10 0.09 0.00 o.86 0.78

Is there an explanation for this pattern? Pollard has argued that the patterns of industrialization in Europe can be better understood if we adopt a regional rather than a national standpoint.3 He was speaking mostly of north-western Europe and of sub-national regions, but his work reinforces the impression that a regional, comparative approach to the problems of retardation in the Latin economies may also yield useful insights.

If we accept that there is what we could call a 'Latin' pattern of modernization, a pattern of retardation relative to a European norm during

3Pollard, 'Industrialisation'; idem, Peaceful conquest.

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the nineteenth century, and of rapid catching up during the second half of the twentieth, then we should look for possible explanations which may be applicable to the three countries making up the region.4 If only the nineteenth century were under discussion, one would be more inclined to concentrate upon the factors of retardation; however, since there seems to be clear recovery in the twentieth century, the explanation is incomplete unless we can account for this reversal of fortunes.

The regional comparative approach has the advantage of forcing us to bypass what is anecdotal or contingent in the history of each individual country, and to concentrate on common traits from which we can hope to obtain generalizations. For example: attributing retardation, as some have done, to free-trade policies in the case of Italy,5 to the way the land reform or disentailment (desamortizacion) was carried out in the case of Spain,6 or to British imperialism in the case of Portugal7 does not seem satisfactory (or even logically 'elegant') from this point of view. If three different causes produced the same effects in three countries of similar characteristics and located in the same geographical region, then in good logic one should look for a more general and homogeneous common cause: a factor such as fiscal mismanagement or deficient agricultural practice, both problems recurring in our three countries during the nineteenth century, may be what we are looking for. And if we are satisfied with this answer, then we should next investigate the cause of these common political and economic sins. We would want to study what was wrong with both the bodies and the souls of our Latin countries.

Spain, Italy, and Portugal share two traits which can explain the common features of their economic histories: their culture and their geographical endowment. The culture of south-western Europe can be summarized in the often-repeated word 'Latin' and dates back at least to its Roman heritage which has moulded so many of the features and institutions of these countries, from their languages and their religion to their legal systems. The physical, especially agricultural, endowment of the Mediterranean basin is fairly homogeneous, and has determined the choice of techniques and of crops, even the shape of fields, and of course the diets of these countries for many centuries. These two interrelated elements can explain the broad contours of the economic history of south-western Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

4 Not everybody agrees, however: Molinas and Prados, in 'Was Spain different?', deal with topics closely related to the ones we are examining here and conclude, after a comparison of Italy and Spain between i86o and I930, that 'the idea of two different ways to economic growth is more convincing than the Latin pattern . . . Spain followed her own, different way to modernization' (p. 397). These statements, however, are based upon subjective judgements not wholly supported by sometimes debatable evidence. One could equally claim, after studying their data, that the idea of a Latin pattern is more convincing than that of two different ways to economic growth. All this does not deny the originality of the work by Molinas and Prados, and the merit of Prados's statistical reconstructions, upon which part of this article is based.

5 Cafagna, 'Industrial revolution', esp. pp. 292-3. 6 As I myself, although half-heartedly, did some years ago in Banking, railroads, p. 45. For a more

robust condemnation of desamortizaci6n after many disclaimers, see Nadal, 'Failure of the industrial revolution', pp. 565-7.

7 Pereira, Livre cambio, p. 3I5.




ECONOMIC RETARDATION AND RECOVERY 5 I

The economic development of any human society is the result of the interplay of the physical endowment of its territory and the technology available to exploit it. Between these two elements, however, there is a crucial mediating factor: the institutional make-up of the society in question. If this is accepted, then the retardation of south-western Europe in the nineteenth century can be traced back several hundred years. In fact, during the middle ages and the early modern period most technological innovations in agriculture were best adapted to the agricultural conditions and require- ments of the lands of northern Europe, from the heavy plough to the many varieties of 'convertible husbandry'. The agriculture of southern Europe, with a few minor exceptions, remained tied to the two-field rotation of cereal cultivation, with the light plough scratching the sandy soil, much as in the time of the Roman empire (when this technique, by the way, was the best available in the whole of Europe). This accumulation of agricultural innovations adapted to the moist, heavy, rich soils of northern Europe, culminating in the agricultural revolution of the early modern era, first in the Netherlands and then in England, is the main explanation of the gap in incomes and in living standards between northern and southern Europe, which became increasingly apparent during the nineteenth century.

It is unnecessary to dwell here on the importance of agriculture in the early stages of the modernization of an economy. Those countries that were able to import the agricultural revolution during the nineteenth century could thereby become successful and early latecomers to economic modernity (as happened in Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, for instance), whereas those countries which, for one reason or another, were unable to 'revolutionize' their agriculture remained backward. Such was the case of our Latin countries.

In the specific case of Spain the physical obstacles to modernization were very strong, probably more so than in Italy or in Portugal. The sheer size and shape of the country, the dryness and altitude of the central plateau (the Meseta) made transport expensive, isolated it from trade and innovation, and discouraged the transfer of human resources to more productive activities. For Spain, geography and culture reinforced each other as obstacles to modernization from the seventeenth century to the mid-twentieth.

The primary sector, mainly agriculture, occupied a high and almost constant share of the Spanish labour force, approximately two-thirds, throughout the nineteenth century.8 The situation appears to have been quite similar in the cases of Italy and Portugal, although the Italian share seems to have been significantly lower and to have begun to decline earlier (see table 4).

Such a large agricultural sector acted as a restraint on the Spanish economy in many ways.9 In the first place, the low level of agricultural productivity kept the diet of the average Spaniard at around the subsistence level, with little long-run improvement until well into the twentieth century. (The

8 Prez Moreda, 'Evoluci6n de la poblaci6n'; idem, 'Spain's demographic modernization'. 9 The same was true of Portugal: Lains, 'La agriculture y la industria'.




6 GABRIEL TORTELLA

Table 4. Workers in agriculture as percentage of total labour force

Year Italya Spain Portugal Male workers i 86o 69.9 I 870 6i.2 i88o 54.0 72. Ib

I 890 72.3c 68. I I900 58.2 72.2 66.9 I910 54.2 59.6 6i.o I920 54.8 6o.5 I930 49.0 50.6 55.0 I940 49.0d 55-8 53-3 I950 42.5 54.3 52.8 I960 28.4 43.6 48.6

Male and female workers

i960 28 4I 43 I970 i6 29 3I I980 I2 I7 26

Notes: a years ending in I b i877 c i887 d I936 Sources: for i860-i960, Mitchell, European historical statistics. For Spain this has been corrected and completed with Carreras, Estadisticas hist6ricas. The discrepancies were not serious, which increases one's trust in Mitchell's figures for Italy and Portugal. For i960-80, World Bank, World tables.

gradual substitution of wheat for rye and inferior grains, and the introduction of the potato and maize may have been the most significant improvements; on the other hand, there are reasons to think that meat consumption per caput decreased in the second half of the nineteenth century, while in Italy it increased slightly.)'0 Comparison at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth shows that agricultural yields in Spain and Portugal, and to a lesser extent in Italy, were well below those in France, Britain, or Germany in basic products such as wheat, rye, barley, and potatoes. " In Italy, however, the diet clearly improved, the relative prices of basic foodstuffs fell in the late nineteenth century, and production picked up from I895 onwards.12

The stagnant agricultural sector also failed dismally as a market for industrial products and as a supplier of capital for modernization. This is well established for Spain.'3 Portuguese agriculture as a whole also remained technologically backward and provided a poor market for consumer goods. '4 Italy alone is a partial exception here. In northern Italy agriculture started to modernize and mechanize at the turn of the century. The duality of Italian agriculture became evident a few years later. In I9IO the Po valley, with I3 per cent of Italy's arable land, accounted for 3I per cent of the

10 G6mez Mendoza and Simpson, 'Consumo de caree; Simpson, 'Producci6n agraria'. Van Zanden, 'First green revolution', shows a small increase in meat consumption in Italy between i870 and i9i0. According to Galassi and Cohen, 'Agricultura italiana', this increase took place mostly in the last decade of this period.

" See table 5. See also van Zanden, 'First green revolution', esp. fig. 5. 12 Cafagna, 'Industrial revolution', pp. 30I-2; Galassi and Cohen, 'Agricultura italiana', passim. 13 Tortella, 'Formaci6n de capital'; idem, 'Agriculture'. 14 Reis, 'Latiffindio e progresso tecnico'; idem, 'Pan y vino'; Lains, 'La agriculture y la industria';

Pereira, Livre cambio, esp. ch. 3.

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Table 5. Agricultural yields in selected European countries, 18go-1g9o (in metric cwt/hectare)

Wheat Barley Rice Oats Potatoes Spain

i89i-i900 7.6 9.2 6.9 7.9 n.d I90I-I0 9.0 II.5 7.9 7.7 n.d

Italy I890-6 7.9a 6.5b 7.8b 7-Ib 6 .Ib I90I-I0 9.5 9.0C I4.IC 9.3c 950Oc

Portugal I90I-I0 5.9 70.0

France I892 I2.7 II.9 II.0 io.8 I05.0 I902 I3.6 I3.7 8.7 I2.8 76.7

Britain i89i-i900 25.3 20.9d I-7.4d I46.2d I90I-I0 22.I 2I.Ie I9.0e I4I.Ie

Germany I892 I7.I I7.0 I4.2 I4.4 III.7 I902 I9.7 I8.9 I5.4 i8.o I34.I

Upper Silesia I89I-I900 I5.5 I6.6 I3.3 I5.0 II0.0 I90I-I0 I7.6 I8.7 I5.3 I7.6 I25.5

Notes:a i890-6; b i890-5; c909-Io; d i892; eI902 Sources: Tortella, 'Agriculture' and sources cited there; for Portugal, Lains, 'La agriculture y la industria'.

country's agricultural output, with a productivity three times that of the rest of the country.15

As a result of high death rates and relatively low birth rates, the Spanish and Portuguese countrysides exported little manpower. The level of urbanization remained low throughout the nineteenth century in Spain, in Portugal, and even in Italy (where, according to Livi-Bacci,16 only I6 per cent of the population lived in cities of more than 50,000 inhabitants by I9I I). It is hard to know whether it was the conservative nature of peasants that kept them in their villages, or the lack of pull from the industrial sector that caused this immobility.'7 In the end it was the external shock of foreign competition in grain, the 'agricultural depression' of the last quarter of the century, that pushed the peasants and farmers of the Latin European countries into the cities and overseas.'8 The failure of agriculture

15 Orlando, 'Progressi e difficolta'; the data offered by Galassi and Cohen, 'Agricultura italiana', seem to show a less advantageous position for the north but, as they make clear, this is because they group together agriculture and stock-raising.

16 'Fattori demografici'. 17 For the Spanish case the first would be Nadal's interpretation: see, for instance, Nadal, 'Failure',

pp. 532-9; Prados, De imperio a naci6n, ch. 4 would hold the latter view. 18 Robledo, 'Crisis agraria'; Cazzola, 'Aspectos y problemas'; Leite, 'Emigragao portuguesa'; Reis,

'Pan y vino'; Galassi and Cohen, 'Agricultura italiana', p. I44. Robledo, Cazzola, and Galassi and Cohen establish a clear relationship between the 'depression' and out-migration in the Spanish and Italian cases, while Reis puts more emphasis on internal migration in the Portuguese case; Leite's figures, however, leave little doubt about the growth of Portuguese out-migration in the last quarter of the

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(until the very end of the nineteenth century) to produce a surplus population which would flock to the cities to work in the new factories is obviously typical of south-western Europe, in clear contrast with such northern countries as Britain since the mid eighteenth century and Germany since the mid nineteenth.

Agriculture also ought to produce an abundant flow of exports in the early stages of growth, but here again Spain and Portugal failed almost totally. The word 'almost' is used advisedly here, because it cannot be denied that exports from both countries were largely agricultural in the nineteenth century-the main exception being mineral ores. In spite of this undeniable and inescapable fact (what can a backward country export but primary products?), and in spite of the fact that at least in Spain exports grew absolutely and in relation to income, the share of foreign trade relative to the size of the economy remained too low, and the contribution of agriculture consequently too small. Only in Italy did foreign trade play a dynamic role in the final decades of the nineteenth century, while a growing and modernizing agricultural sector contributed to the development of exports. 19

The lack of agricultural progress in Spain was therefore one of the chief obstacles to economic modernization, and the same can confidently be said of Portugal and, to a lesser extent, of Italy. The cause was a mixture of physical and cultural factors which are hard to separate, though the impact of climatic and soil conditions was possibly greater in Spain than in Portugal or Italy. It is not only that, as in the Mediterranean basin as a whole, Spain's physical environment is ill suited to an improvement in agricultural techniques. In addition, within the northern Mediterranean context, Spain's agricultural conditions are generally poor. In the words of Pounds's classic:

Large areas, particularly on the Meseta, are almost bare of soil, and elsewhere the rainfall is so low that the land is barren steppe. The agrarian problem turns on the rainfall and the fertility of the soil. In the North, where rainfall is adequate-and often more than adequate-the land is hilly and the soil thin and leached. . . Spain is commonly contrasted with Italy. They have large areas of waste and unproductive land, and the climate of both has much in common. But Italy, with rather more than half the area, supports almost twice the population of Spain.20

Pounds goes on to attribute Spain's backwardness to social stratification and peasant illiteracy; by and large, one must agree with him. Physical factors, however, also militate heavily against Spain. Neither in Italy nor in Portugal do thin and rocky soils combine with the lack of rainfall to make such a high proportion of land unsuitable for cultivation as in Spain.

Geographers have drawn a notional frontier separating humid northern Europe from dry Mediterranean lands. North of this line the average yearly rainfall exceeds 750 millimetres (30 inches), and the average temperature

nineteenth century. Toniolo, Storia economical ch. i0 notes the high rate of 'disguised unemployment' in Italian agriculture at least until the First World War.

19 Cafagna, 'Industrial revolution', pp. 300-I0. 20 Pounds, Historical and political geography, pp. 2I7, 2I9.

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and evaporation are such that minimum levels of soil moisture are maintained throughout the year. South of the line yearly rainfall is below 750 millimetres, and the temperature and evaporation rate make the soils excessively dry. Now this line divides Portugal and Italy approximately in half: dry Portugal comprises the land south of the Tagus, dry Italy the land south of a line running from Elba to the Gargano peninsula (the spur in the Italian boot), Sardinia and Sicily included. In Spain, however, 90 per cent of the territory is thereby classified as dry; only the northern coastal strip and a narrow fringe along the Pyrenees lie north of the divide; and a large part of this land is mountainous. No other west European country compares with Spain in terms of dryness (except that Greece could possibly qualify as drier). To this one must add the altitude factor. Only Switzerland has an average altitude exceeding that of Spain. Extremes of temperature follow from this, with chiefly negative effects on agricultural productivity.2' The combined effects of altitude and dryness make most of Spain very unsuitable for cereal cultivation.

One might at first think that a country with such poor agriculture is ideally suited for industrialization, because of the low opportunity cost incurred in abandoning one activity (agriculture) to take up another (industry). This idea may be considered simplistic, but it is not altogether wrong. The early and successful industrialization of Switzerland, where human, rather than physical or geographical factors appear to have played the key role, suggests that this hypothesis has some merit. Now why was not Spain, like Switzerland, another case of industrialization through comparative advantage?

There are several possible answers to this question, but the basic one is that the comparative disadvantage of Switzerland in agriculture was much greater; according to Bergier,22 Switzerland since the middle ages has imported nearly 50 per cent of its food. Due to the basic poverty of Swiss subsistence agriculture, its peasants and farmers have branched out and worked part time in cottage industries. By the same token, Switzerland never had any pretence of self-sufficiency. The transition to industry, therefore, was facilitated by strong comparative advantage, early formation of human capital, and an inclination towards free-trade policies. Most of these ingredients were missing from nineteenth-century Spain, and some were lacking in Italy and Portugal.

As we shall see, education and literacy in our Latin countries remained among the lowest in western Europe during the nineteenth century, while Switzerland was a pioneer in popular education.23 And tariff barriers in all three Latin countries acted as buffers against trade-induced change, which in this case would have chiefly involved the transfer of resources from agriculture to industry.24

21 Silva, 'Relagoes de produgao', esp. pp. 48-5I. 22 Histoire economique de la Suisse, pp. io6, I79. 23 Ibid., pp. I77-9- 24 On the effects of protectionism in Spain, Tortella, 'Economfa espafiola', and Prados, De imperio a

naci6n, ch. 5. For Portugal, Reis, 'Latifundio e progresso t&nico'; Lains, 'Proteccionismo em Portugal'; idem, 'La agriculture y la industria'; a different opinion in Pereira, Livre cambio, passim, esp. pp. 30I, 3I5-6 (where she states that Portugal is a typical example of those 'countries whose industrialization

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The Italian and Portuguese situations are somewhat less clear cut. For one thing, agricultural conditions there were not so unfavourable. For another, although both also erected barriers to foreign trade, they seemed to follow more rational lines of specialization. Italy's light industry (mostly cotton and silk textiles) was one of its main exporting sectors by the end of the nineteenth century.25 Portugal specialized in exports of foodstuffs, wines, and forest products.26 Although the three countries had similarly low levels of commercial openness, Spain probably exhibited the most marked contrasts. While the coastal regions were linked to foreign markets, these hardly affected the lives of the inhabitants of the Meseta, who for centuries were practically self-sufficient, depending on cereal cultivation with very poor yields.

II Cultural factors are undoubtedly difficult to measure and international

comparisons consequently a problem. We can suggest, however, surprising affinities between our three Latin countries. The fact, for instance, that all three were ruled by dictators during long and overlapping periods of the twentieth century indicates similar socio-political reactions to the problems of economic modernization.27

Many other institutional parallels could be established. Chronic budget deficits plagued the three economies during the second half of the nineteenth century, with similar effects: destabilizing the currency, damaging monetary policies, driving up interest rates, crowding out private borrowers, causing serious problems to the management of the public debt, hurting the international rating of the state and the private borrowers alike in international financial markets, and pushing governments into nationalizing and selling off church and municipal properties. The pattern of land tenure is another common feature of these Latin countries (which they share with other 'Latin' and/or 'Catholic' countries in Europe and in America). This in turn is the result of physical and historical factors: the characteristics of the Mediterranean soils combining with extensive ownership of land by the Catholic church since the middle ages and the land reforms of the nineteenth century (the Risorgimento in Italy, and the desamortizacion and desamortizasao in Spain and Portugal) have resulted in the twin problems of latifundia and minifundia, absentee ownership, and widespread sharecropping (mezzadria, aparceria, parfaria). It is hazardous, however, even to speculate on the

was blocked by Great Britain [which imposed by military force] a free-trade policy'); see Pereira, Polftica y economfa, chs. 3 and 4, and her debate with Tortella in Revista de Historia Econ6mica, III (i985), pp. 52I-3, 549-52. On Italy, Toniolo, Storia economic, ch. IO; Galassi, 'Stasi e sviluppo'; and Galassi and Cohen, 'Agricultura italiana'. Galassi and Cohen agree with Simpson ('Elecci6n de tecnica' and 'Limites del crecimiento agrario') in attributing to tariff protection a negative effect on agricultural technical progress and productivity both in Italy and in Spain. On the advantages for 'peripheral' European countries of trading with the 'centre', Fraile, 'Mercados del Centro'.

25 Zamagni, Dalla periferia, ch. 3; Tattara, 'Tendencias del comercio italiano'; Cafagna, 'Industrial revolution'; the figures can be checked in ISTAT, Sommario.

26 Lains, 'Exportagoes portuguesas'; Reis, 'Industrializagao'. Lains, 'Proteccionismo em Portugal', argues that protection had distorting effects both in agriculture and in industry.

27 For a recent survey of parallel political developments see Malefakis, Southern Europe.

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causes and the consequences of this system of land tenure. To what extent it has been caused by geographical factors and to what extent it can be explained in purely historical terms; and what effects latifundium, minifundium, sharecropping, and management by owner have on agricultural productivity, all these are problems about which a great deal has been written, but it is difficult to find unequivocal answers.

Cohen and Galassi28 have analysed these questions in Italy. They have looked among Italy's regions for correlation patterns between land tenure and cultivation structures on the one hand, and agricultural productivity on the other. Their findings, however, show very little correlation. No exercise of this sort has been carried out for Portugal or Spain.

Table 6. Literacy rates in selected European countries

Year Belgium France Great Britain Italy Spain Portugal i850 53 58 62 n.d. n.d. n.d. i86o 58 63 69 25 27 I2 i870 64 68 76 3I 3I I4 i88o 69 73 83 38 35 I8 I890 74 78 92 45 40 2I I900 8i 83 97 52 44 22 I910 85 87 I00 62 50 25 I920 88 89 I00 7I 57 33 I930 9I 92 I00 79 69 4I I940 94 94 I00 83 77 48 I950 97 96 I00 87 83 56 I960 98 98 I00 9I 86 62 I970 99 99 I00 94 9I 7I 1980 99 99 I00 97 94 78

Sources: Cipolla, Literacy and economic development; Reis, 'Analfabetismo em Portugal'; V. Zamagni, 'L'oferta di istruzione in Italia, i86i-i987' (unpub. typescript, I992); World Bank, World tables.

Fortunately, other social parameters are also amenable to measurement and comparison. Table 6 and figure 2 give details of illiteracy rates in six European countries.29 It is readily apparent that during the nineteenth century our Latin countries had literacy rates well below those of most other European nations. Around I900, for instance, nearly 50 per cent of the adult population in Italy and Spain were unable to read (and a fortiori to write). The Portuguese rate was even lower. In Belgium, meanwhile, one of the least literate among the 'developed' European countries, the proportion of those unable to read was only I9 per cent of the adult population, and in France and Great Britain it was considerably lower.

In the light of these figures, it is tempting to establish a relationship between literacy and economic development. This was done explicitly in an article by Sandberg30 in which he showed that a ranking of European countries by their literacy rates in i85o almost exactly matched the ordering of these same countries by per caput income in I950, but not in i850. His

28 Cohen and Galassi, 'Sharecropping and productivity'; Galassi and Cohen, 'Agricultura italiana'. 29 For a more general, impressionistic view of all European countries, see E. Johansson, 'The history

of literacy in Sweden in comparison with some other countries' (unpub. typescript, UmeA, Sweden), fig- I9, p. 72.

30 'Ignorance, poverty, and economic backwardness'.

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I2 GABRIEL TORTELLA

90o Great Britain _,.,,

7o'. *Belgium / /

4o Italy

30.,> ' vPortugal

I20L - I850 I900 I950 I980

Year

Figure 2. Literacy rates in selected European countries, 1850-i980 Source: tab. 6.

conclusion was that literacy rates were an excellent long-term (not short- term) explanatory factor for economic development. This seems to fit very well with our income and literacy data respectively for Latin and non-Latin countries.

Let us consider briefly the causes and the consequences of illiteracy. Taking the economic consequences first, it would appear at first glance that a literate population should be more productive than an illiterate one. This seems to be confirmed by the pioneering work of Bowman and Anderson3' in the i96os. Today the problem is defined as functional illiteracy: its economic cost is discussed daily in the US, and there is no need to labour the obvious. However, since a series of literacy campaigns in many countries of the Third World in the i96os and I970s failed to produce immediate economic results, many scholars have challenged the premise that illiteracy is an obstacle to economic growth. The discussion is long and involved, and we cannot go into it here,32 but the debate has strengthened the arguments of the 'pro-literacy' side, who believe that literacy contributes to economic growth in several ways. First was to provide workers with increased skills in communication: reading instructions, brochures, manuals, and books makes workers more productive. This was the first argument advanced by the 'pro-literacy' scholars, although their opponents have claimed that most basic working skills are learned orally and by direct observation. This is the most debated issue and remains unresolved. Secondly, it is said that

31 Their most representative work is probably 'Concerning the role of education'. 32 For a summary, Nnfiez, 'Literacy and economic growth in modern Spain', ch. 2 and idem, Fuente

de la riqueza, ch. 3. See also Colclough, 'Impact of primary schooling'.

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ECONOMIC RETARDATION AND RECOVERY I3

literacy also provides workers with greater ability to expand their skills. This means learning a second trade, or new techniques within the same trade, adapting better and more rapidly to the vagaries of the market, that is increasing mobility, and, most importantly, acquiring higher educational levels. And thirdly there is an increasing conviction among linguists and psychologists that literacy and the associated knowledge of grammar improves the reasoning and learning abilities of the student.

These statements seem to be supported by research carried out recently in Spain, Italy, and Portugal. The work of Nuifiez shows that Sandberg's hypothesis for European countries is statistically confirmed for Spain's 49 provinces, although with a shorter time lag. Using cross-sectional provincial data and allowing for a time lag of about 25 to 30 years (roughly a generation), Nuifiez has shown that there is high correlation between literacy and per caput income in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Spain.

The correlation improves considerably when a second variable is included: the so-called gender gap. This means that, other things being equal, the narrower the gap between male and female literacy rates, the stronger the positive impact of literacy on economic growth. This new variable in the analysis of the economic effects of literacy has opened a host of new perspectives which we cannot examine here. The discovery of the gender gap in literacy suggests that the diffusion of improved learning and reasoning skills is a potent contribution of literacy to economic growth, since women in Spain made up only a small fraction of the conventional labour force.

Research on Italy, and to a lesser extent on Portugal, fully supports the general thrust of findings about Spain. Zamagni has shown high correlation rates between literacy, economic growth, and industrialization in Italy's regions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.33 She appears

Table 7. The gender gap in Italy and- in Spaina

Year Italy Spain i86o II.0 30.0 i870 I4.0 28.8 i88o I4.0 27.7 i890 I2.3 26.4 I900 i0.6 20.3 I910 9.0 I7.7 I920 8.5 I5.2 I930 8.o I4.4 I940 6.5 I I.2 I950 5.0 9.8 I960 3.5 8.9 I970 2.0 7.2 I980 n.d. 5.3

Note: a male minus female literacy rates. Sources: V. Zamagni, 'L'oferta di istruzione in Italia, i86i- 1987' (unpub. typescript, 1992), passim; Nunez, Fuente de la riqueza, p. 94; INE, Anuario estadistico, I99I, p. 75.

33'Istruzione e sviluppo'; idem, 'Oferta di istruzione in Italia, i86i-i987: un fattore guida dello sviluppo o uno staculo?' (unpub. typescript, I992).

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35

30

25

20 N

N Spain I5

I - Italy

5 -

0

I870 I900 I930 1960 I980

Year

Figure 3. The gender gap in literacy rates, Italy and Spain, i860-i980 Source: tab. 7.

to confirm the importance of differences in literacy between men and women, since Italy, with initially lower rates but a narrower gender gap, soon overtook Spain both in literacy and in economic growth.

Research in Portugal has been pursued by Reis and Ramos. According to Reis:

it is generally recognized that the levels of education or of technical skills have been an important factor of economic development for the western economies in the nineteenth century. This is another area where Portugal and, as a consequence, Portuguese industry found themselves at a considerable disadvantage, a factor which has not been sufficiently recognized in modern studies about the nineteenth century but which greatly preoccupied the industrialists and commentators of the period.

Reis cites an i88i government report in which the directors of a cotton factory complained that 'the lack of general education and the almost total absence of technical instruction poses great difficulties for us, not only to hire good workers, but also to find competent foremen'.34

The consequences of illiteracy are, therefore, well established. What can one say about its causes? A curious geographical factor is that, just as within Europe literacy rates diminish as we go from north to south, so the same trend is visible within many individual countries, including our Latin region. The meaning of this, however, is far from clear.

A traditional explanation of literacy differentials stresses the religious

34 Reis, 'Industrializagao', pp. 224-5. See also idem, 'Analfabetismo em Portugal', where he discusses the causes of Portugal's very low levels of literacy in the nineteenth century (and blames the country's high levels of national cohesion). For regional contrasts, Ramos, 'Culturas da alfabetizagao'.

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factor: literacy was more widespread in Protestant countries because bible reading was encouraged there, whereas Catholicism, by vesting a monopoly of biblical interpretation in ecclesiastical authority, discouraged reading and stimulated oral communication and teaching. There is much in favour of this argument: the proclivity of Latins on both sides of the Atlantic towards verbal as against written communication is hard to deny. A look at figure 2, however, shows that the literacy rates in two Catholic countries, Belgium and France, were much closer to those in Protestant England than to those in Catholic Italy and Spain. The explanation for this apparent exception is, however, as Stone, Furet, and Ozouf have shown, that in areas where Protestantism and Catholicism competed, Catholics became literate in similar proportions to Protestants. This would account for high literacy in borderline areas such as northern France, Belgium, and Switzerland."5

Table 8. Primary school enrolment rates (per iooo population)

Year Italy Portugal Spain France Germany Sweden United Kingdom

i850 I-I.0 - 92.8 i8.o i86o 40.3 i9.8 8o.o i08.7 39.8 i870 53.I 28.6 92.I I20.8 I33-4 58.8 i88o 69.4 50.4 I04.I I42.8 I38.8 ii6.i i890 8o.5 46.5 98.o I45-7 I44.2 I33.5 I900 84.2 42.6 92.0 I44.3 I59.I I44-4 I5I.0 I9I0 96.7 49.7 85.9 I45-0 i58.8 I44-0 I48.8 I920 II2.4 56.8 90.5 II8.9 II9.4 I36.7 I930 II5.6 63.9 95.I II9.2 io8.i I25.3

Source: Mitchell, European historical statistics, with interpolations.

For one simple proximate cause of illiteracy one should look at the effort these nations made to educate their populations. Table 8 and figure 4 show clearly that Latin countries lagged behind in the proportion of students enrolled in schools. The variable used is a crude one, since it pays no attention to a crucial element, the age composition of the population.36 Nonetheless, it is obvious that in Spain and Portugal enrolments stagnated at low levels while Italy, although starting out from very low initial figures, maintained a steady level of improvement. It seems obvious that the increasing gap between Spanish and Italian literacy levels was due to a more sustained increase in Italian enrolment rates. The even faster climb of the UK from even lower initial levels may surprise some readers. In fact, it is a statistical mirage. British levels of schooling prior to, say, i88o, were much higher than our figures reflect, but as much of the schooling took place in private institutions, it is not included in Mitchell's figures. What

35 Stone, 'Literacy and education in England'; Furet and Ozouf, Reading and writing, esp. pp. i66- 96; Bergier, Histoire economique de la Suisse, p. I77.

36 'Enrolment rates' have been calculated by dividing 'children in school' into censal data from Mitchell's European historical statistics, tabs. Ji and Bi, with occasional interpolations. Unfortunately, the figures cannot be more precise due to the differences in legislation and practice across time and space, and to our imperfect knowledge of age pyramids. On the problems of school enrolment data see ibid., P. 749.

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I75 -

United Kingdom

o 5rc France, 8

I00th - c i g Spa, i t

/ , * ~~ Italy

/ / ~~~~~~~Portugal 25 -

i850 i86o i870 i88o i890 I900 I9I0 I920 I930

Year

Figure 4. Students attending primary school (per inooo inhabitants) Source: tab. 8.

the UK curve in large part shows, therefore, is the substitution of public for private schools. The decline in the French, Swedish, and UK rates in the early twentieth century is not due to a retrogression in the educational system in those countries, but to a change in the age compositions of their populations. As the relative number of children decreased, the number of enrolments relative to total population also fell.

The low enrolment levels in the countries with lower literacy rates and lower per caput incomes may be attributed to a series of factors: as well as religion, other cultural and economic factors are so inextricably linked that we can group them under the label of 'the vicious circle of backwardness'. A poor, under-educated population in a technologically backward country may see little reason to press for improvements in education, even to take advantage of the educational opportunities which are offered to it.37 In addition, in a poor country the state is hard pressed for resources. Education is a long-term investment and politicians usually have short-term planning horizons. As a consequence it is those countries that need it most that invest least in education. The income gap between rich and poor tends thereby to grow wider.

Whatever the ultimate causes, geographical, religious, cultural, economic- and probably a combination of all these-our Latin countries devoted less effort to educating their young, and in the long run this contributed to their economic backwardness.

37 On the role of demand in the spread of literacy in Spain, Nifiez, 'Literacy and economic growth in modern Spain', ch. 6 and idem, Fuente de la riqueza, ch. 7; for Portugal, Ramos, 'Culturas da alfabetizagao', esp. pp. II07-9. In both countries demand was keener in the north than in the south.





III Now we have to explain why, in spite of these strong physical and

institutional factors of retardation, our Latin countries have reversed or, at least, stopped the downward trend in relative income. Perhaps the recent surge of faith in 'economic convergence' will make many doubt that such explanation is necessary. Only a few tentative hypotheses will be sketched here.

It seems obvious that, to break the vicious circle which kept the majority of the population tied to the soil at very low subsistence levels, some sort of shock was needed, either of the 'pull' or of the 'push' variety. This means that the population had either to be lured out of archaic agriculture by urban industry and commerce, or propelled out of agriculture by deteriorating living conditions. The main stimulus was of the 'push' variety and was provided by the inflow of cheap grain from the US and Russia, which depressed agricultural prices in Europe and sent many farmers and labourers off the land. That this was a matter of 'push' is shown by the migration of a large part of this uprooted population overseas-they were not mainly attracted by domestic cities and industry. Overseas agricultural competition accelerated trends which inevitably led to the modernization of the Latin economies. The two main trends were towards the transfer of population from agriculture to more productive activities, such as industry; and movement of labour and resources from low- to high-productivity agriculture, that is from grains and legumes into wine, fruit, and vegetables, which were much better suited to Mediterranean soil conditions and much more in demand in high-income northern Europe. This transfer of human resources out of traditional agriculture, though undoubtedly painful, contributed greatly to economic modernization, by providing urban activities with cheap and abundant labour, and also by helping to finance imports of capital goods and technology through the remittances of emigrants.

Proximity to northern Europe and improvements in transport and refrigeration provided a ready market for the primary and semi-primary products of the Latin economies, which were reaping the benefits of low wages and Ricardian situation rents. If nineteenth-century agricultural technology had favoured cereal production, to the detriment of the Mediterranean basin, in the twentieth century the technology benefited fruit and vegetable exporters, and therefore the Latins. The unprecedented economic growth of northern Europe after the Second World War had consequences in southern Europe, which by this time was also better prepared from a human capital point of view.38

There is little doubt that the gradual opening of the Mediterranean economies to foreign trade stimulated the economic growth of all of them. Italy, the most successful, has some distinctive characteristics. By and large, Italy's degree of openness was greater;39 although its agriculture played a key role in the growth of exports (including raw silk, another Italian speciality), its manufacturing industries contributed, according to Tattara,

38 Milward, 'Sector exterior'; Fraile, 'Mercados del Centro'. 39 Federico, 'Comercio exterior'; Tena, 'Protecci6n y competitividad'.

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55.6 per cent of total exports in I9I3,40 while for Spain the equivalent proportion was 27.3 per cent, and for Portugal 8 per cent.41 Emigrants also played a greater role in the Italian case than in Spain: while the American continent took 8.4 per cent of Italian exports in i886, in I9I3 the figure was 22.I per cent.42

In contrast with Italy, Spain and Portugal chose a smaller degree of openness to foreign trade in the twentieth century, and they probably paid for it, as a comparison of the respective curves in figure I would suggest. Not only did they choose to erect barriers to trade, they also seem to have chosen the wrong ones: by protecting wheat production, textiles, and metallurgy they put their resources into activities with little prospect of becoming internationally competitive, and thereby obliged themselves to continue to export Mediterranean agricultural products (citrus and other fruits, cork, olive oil, and wine). Some of these products were in great demand, but the markets for others, such as wine and olive oil, were either static or shrinking. In short, Spain and Portugal sacrificed their competitive industries to their uncompetitive ones. This helps to explain the slower partial recovery of Portugal and Spain in the twentieth century.43 All in all, however, the pull of the growing world markets, which provided outlets, capital goods, and capital loans,44 together with the gradual removal of institutional and educational barriers, favoured the trend towards convergence.

Institutional barriers were removed slowly but effectively. As table 4 and figure 2 show, near universal literacy has been attained in Italy and in Spain by the late twentieth century. Portugal, while approaching fast, is still a generation behind. Although functional, as opposed to official, illiteracy is doubtless still considerable, this seems to be a more general, international problem in which present day Latin governments show very little interest. At the present income levels in these countries, however, secondary and higher education may pose more of a challenge than the teaching of the 'three Rs'. In other areas there is visible improvement too. Fiscal mismanagement, although still considerable, is less serious, in relative terms, than it was in the nineteenth century. The degree of trade openness is probably at its highest point ever. The result of all this has been undeniable economic growth, although whether and when southern Europe will totally recover the ground it lost in the nineteenth century remains to be seen.

University of Alcala, Madrid

40 Tattara, 'Tendencias del comercio italiano', tab. io.5, p. 3Ii. This figure, however, seems exaggerated. From the data in Zamagni, Dalla perzfeia, tab. 3.I, p. I55, according to my calculations, Italian exports of manufactured goods were 23.2% of total exports. Tattara probably includes as manufactures articles such as flour, pasta, and raw silk. He has, however, adjusted his figures to the UN Standard International Trade Classification and includes a similar table for Spain (tab. io.6), which helps comparison.

41 Lains, 'Exportagoes portuguesas', tab. 4, p. 395. This proportion is not comparable; see above, n. 40.

42 Zamagni, Dalla periferia, tab. 3.2, p. I59. 43 Tena, 'Protecci6n y competitividad'; Milward, 'Sector exterior'; Lains, 'Exportagoes portuguesas';

idem, 'Proteccionismo em Portugal'. 44Hertner, Capitale tedesco in Italia; Broder, 'Role des interns strangers'.

Footnote references Aerts, E. and Valkrio, N., eds., Growth and stagnation in the Mediterranean world in the nineteenth and

twentieth centuries, Session B-io, Proceedings, Tenth International Economic History Congress (Leuven, I990).





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Documents

Patterns of Economic Retardation and Recovery in South-Western Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries