The continuity of big mercantile houses established in Western Andalusia during die eighteenth century was jeopardized not only due to die political and economic crisis of the end of the century, but also due to another source of instability that has received little attention in economic history: the equalitarian principles of the Castilian hereditary system, whose aim was to safeguard the transmission of family wealth between generations. Castilian hereditary law and customs promoted family well-being, but die equalitarian division of patrimonies also had the result of forcing die dispersion of fortunes, dierefore hindering the continuity of numerous mercantile family firms. This article studies the effects of die Castilian hereditary system in Cádiz during the eighteen century, when die Andalusien city held the legal monopoly of trade between Spain and its American possessions. The study also analyzes some of the mechanisms that die Cádiz mercantile elites used in order to bequeath more concentrated patrimonies.

The interest of the Borbonic reforming policy about the interior colonization granted —in the ancient Aragon's Crown lands— many enterprises which, on the second half of the 18th Century, counted with the model of repopulation of Sierra Morena and, from 1772, with die replacement of die Fuero Alfonsino of 1329, a privilege that allowed to get die baronal jurisdiction. That is the way, togheter with repopulation thoughts, it was easy to find, in these proyects, speculative motivations or a way to get into die privileged class.

During the first years of XIX century, there were many outstanding authors who defended die direct tax system which fitted better widi die new liberal Constitution. This posistion was even further reinforced in die «Cádiz Cortes». Nevertheless, some others important authors denied die possibility of setting up die new system in order to replace die old one. The later position began with Vicente Alcalá Galiano, continued with the debates in die Cortes de Cádiz and, later on, with die works of Duaso, Pinilla and Plana to critizise die Decreto (Bill) of September, 13, 1813 on the New Public Taxes and it finished with several works by Cañedo in die second decade of die century. Ramón M.a Cañedo will defend a tax system based on indirect taxes. He will based his arguments on Adam Smidi in order to fit his tax principles to die system which was set up in 1785. From his point of view, the indirect tax system was better adapted to the economic and social conditions in Spain.

This work offers a new vision of the agrarian reformism carried out by the Government during the Restauración. This revision focusses on die study of the contributions of Rafael Gasset, die everlasting minister of Fomento during the Restauración —a duty he occupied nine times between 1900 and 1923— to the solution of so called agrarian question in the historical period which started in the critical moment of 98 and finished with the liquidation of die turno de partidos system in September 1923. The analysis looks at the reasons of die failure of the hydraulic agrarian policy during die years of die Canovite system —in our opinion essentially political—, as well as to the reasons that explain its historical continuity and success during die dictatorships of Primo de Rivera and Franco; it also serves to establish some hypothesis which allow us to understand better the nature of these historical regimes.

In this essay is presented an estimation of a cost of living index in Spain for the period 1861–1936, based on the reconstruction of series of prices for twelve Spanish provinces. The author describes the quantitative process, detailing the nature and origin of the sources, the goods selected and the budget criteria. Although die results do not modify our knowledge about the dynamics of the Spanish economy, they suggest a new reading intensity of subsistence crisis in the second half of ninenteenth century.

This note is a first aproximation to the evolution of wages in a catalan cotton firm. From the firm sources it has been made a male and female wages indexes. The main conclusions are the relative wage stability up World War I, the change in die evolution from die war, the sexual diferentiation of wages and the different evolution between bodi indexes.