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Railroad Impact in Backward Economies: Spain, 1850–1913

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2006

Alfonso Herranz-Loncán
Alfonso Herranz-Loncán
Affiliation:
Professor of Economic History; Department of Economic History and Institutions; Faculty of Economics; University of Barcelona; Diagonal, 690; 08034 Barcelona, Spain. E-mail: alfonso.herranz@ub.edu.
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Abstract

This article reassesses the economic impact of Spanish railroads in 1850–1913, which has usually been considered to be substantially higher than in the most developed countries on the basis of the social saving methodology. The application of growth accounting techniques shows, by contrast, that the direct contribution of railroads to economic growth was lower in Spain than in the United Kingdom, mainly due to the low importance that railroad transport had within Spanish GDP before 1913.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 66 , Issue 4 , December 2006 , pp. 853 - 881
Copyright
© 2006 The Economic History Association

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