Trabajo, salarios reales y consumo en la España preindustrial. Midiendo las divergencias en perspectiva regional e internacional EN

Labour, real wages and consumption in preindustrial Spain.
Measuring divergences in regional and international perspective

MINISTERIO DE CIENCIA E INNOVACION (HAR2016-78026-P)

Ernesto López Losa
(Universidad del País Vasco)

2017-2021

Summary

The research focuses on: 1) expanding the available evidence by augmenting the stock of prices of different consumption goods (foodstuffs, textiles, housing, energy). It also aims to deepen into the analysis of the price differences regarding qualities of some of the basic items in the consumption baskets such as bread or wine. 2) Improving the existing knowledge on consumption patterns according to regional and social differences. It would make possible to refine estimations and to avoid distortions in interpretations caused by the use of inaccurate budgets. It also would help to explore the impact of the cost of living on labour’s rewards and to speculate about its influence in the economic performance at regional level in Spain. 3) Increasing the evidence on wages and salaries by expanding the research from unskilled workers to more labor categories, including wages of women. 4) Expanding the existing computations of real wages for unskilled to skilled labourers and, in general, to a wider variety of occupational categories. Delving into the comparison of real wages, at regional and international level, with respect to hypothetical welfare lines of poverty, subsistence or respectability. 5) Increasing the evidence on the number of days effectively worked to support and verify the hypothesis steaming from the research on the theoretical working days computed from religious calendars. 6) Studying urban consumption patterns by social and economic strata, with particular emphasis in textiles and overseas goods.

Research team

Ernesto López Losa (Universidad del País Vasco)
Emiliano Fernández de Pinedo (Universidad del País Vasco)
Nadia Fernández de Pinedo (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
Mario García Zúñiga (Universidad del País Vasco)
David González Agudo 
Manuel González-Mariscal (Universidad de Sevilla)