LA ACTIVIDAD ECONOMICA DE ANDALUCIA A TRAVES DE LOS CENSOS (1900-1960): MARKETS-SHARES, PARTICIPACIONES REGIONALES Y COCIENTES DE LOCALIZACION)

Elena Ruiz Romero de la Cruz, Elena Cruz-Ruiz, Gorka Zamarreño-Aramendia

Resumen:

La transformación de Andalucía ha sido analizada desde diversas perspectivas. Esta investigación propone una nueva mirada, escasamente utilizada en la historia económica, observando la estructura de la ocupación entre 1900 y 1960, tomando como fuente primaria las profesiones recogidas en los censos de población. Una vez homogeneizada la información censal, se ha aplicado una metodología propia de la Economía Regional. Los instrumentos utilizados han sido participaciones regionales, markets-shares y cocientes de localización, permitiendo observar la especialización de las provincias andaluzas y la concentración geográfica de la actividad en relación con el marco estatal, haciendo visible las características espaciales del proceso de transformación andaluz. Una línea de investigación que permite comparar los resultados obtenidos, complementado otros estudios que analizan la economía andaluza en clave histórica.

Abstract:

The temporal variation of the spatial pattern of population and total employment has been dealt with by the great referents of regional economics, with location indicators as an analytical tool (Hoover, 1948; Isard, 1973, 1956), although in relation to historical debates it has not been used frequently (Cuadrado, 2006, p. 23). The information collected under the denomination of professional occupation would be used early on to describe the transformation of a space (Lebergott, 1966; Lewis, 1979). On the threshold of the 21st century, the studies of Rosenbloom (1996) and Broadberry and Wagner (1996) are well known, and their contributions were along similar lines. In any case, we will take as a reference the theoretical foundations of Walter Isard (1956, 1973), although, the dynamic localization economies known as "MAR externalities" are nourished by the contributions of Marshall (1890), Arrow (1962) and Romer (1986), as specified by Fracasso & Vitucci (2018, p. 120). At the regional level, and for large aggregates, population censuses and industrial and trade contribution statistics are the two informative sources par excellence (Parejo, 2005, p. 11). Moreover, the structure of employment will serve even better than other variables, such as aggregate production or foreign trade figures, to reveal the process of economic change (Pérez Moreda, 1984, p. 26). The treatment of data referring to professional occupations in censuses represents a basis on which to structure a study methodology, which was already used to understand the change that took place in England during the Industrial Revolution (Harley, 1993). The present research provides a methodological proposal based precisely on population censuses, taking the activities that serve to elaborate certain instruments of Regional Economics, such as sectoral participations, markets-shares and location quotients. The aim is to recognize the structure of employment in Andalusia, identifying the typology of the activity as a guide to its development model, within the framework of the second technological revolution, a well-defined stage in economic history, starting in the early twentieth century and culminating in the sixties, when developmentalism arrived and the economic indicators reveal the process of convergence with other advanced European countries. The research has required a previous homogenization process (Ruiz Romero de la Cruz, 2001), carried out taking into account the philosophy that inspires the definitions provided in each of the censuses. A second step has been taken, elaborating the sectorial participations, which indicate the number of employees in the different activities, taking as a reference the total employed population, observing the distribution of the labor force, in the different sectors and provinces in the chosen time cut-off. The market-share indicator and the location quotients will be other instruments that will reflect the spatial characteristics of the Spanish industrialization process. The formal structure is a quotient whose numerator relates the population employed in the subsector to be analyzed to the total population employed in the subsector indicated for the country as a whole. The denominator would be formed by a new quotient, which marks the relation between the employed population in the sector considered at the provincial level and the total employed population in the national set (Isard, 1973). We point out two issues that will help to interpret the data. First, it should be noted that the resulting figure in the numerator will reflect the "market-share" or market-share of the province in the national total for the sector or subsector under study. On the other hand, the objective of the location quotient (LQ) as a whole is to observe the relative specialization of an area with respect to the nation as a whole; therefore, we are talking about the concentration of activity. If the values obtained exceed the unit CL>1, it means that in that territorial unit the activity exceeds the national average, while if CL<1 it means that the activity is lower than the national average in the given sector. The results have made it possible to identify long-term trends and to qualify some of the conclusions of other researchers. We have not attempted to enter into the various debates that analyze the trajectory of change in Andalusia's economic sectors over such a broad, diverse and complex period of time, so we will refer to the most important and decisive issues in explaining the transformation process in Andalusia. The history of Andalusian modernization is inevitably subject to the geographical reality of its territory, its size, the dispersion of population centers, the difficulty of articulating it through infrastructures or the unequal location of natural resources. This elements turned out to be determining factors for its development, being possible to consider the characterization of Marshallian industrial districts (Martín Rodríguez, 1990), depending on the more or less restrictive application of the use of the concept, as Castillo Alonso, (1994, p. 54) affirms. In general terms, it is the weakness of demand and the scarce capacity for saving, investment and expenditure, which conditioned the development of Andalusia. The notion of extractive capitalism explains an economic model, based on the empowerment of certain low-yield sectors, with a poorly paid workforce, within the framework of an industry with a low technological level and with investments that do not have the due profitability, whose product also leaves the land (Arenas, 2016). The research carried out, shows that there was a transformation that is visualized through the occupation in certain basic sectors, without reaching high levels of progress, except at specific moments in time and in certain activities, which respond to that defined structure of economic model, where the capital did not forge a diversified and sustained progress, in the sectors that could have been a driving force, earlier in time, for the whole of Andalusia. The methodology applied has shown in numerous activities the division of Andalusia into two economic zones, with the eastern part experiencing a more parsimonious modernization process, a conclusion that, although with nuances, was already pointed out by Parejo (2011, p. 153), for the stage prior to the economic boom of the seventies. Thus, Cadiz and Seville, which will be joined by Malaga, have more dynamic patterns of economic transformation, although a certain decline in Cadiz can be observed at certain points in time. It is important to mention the economic axis that revolves around Seville and its province, whose historical role as Andalusian capital has predisposed it to act as an economically attractive focus, allowing a diversification of its activities, experiencing a more accelerated process of outsourcing than the rest of the provinces. In any case, we believe that the instruments of Regional Economics can be used to analyze the processes of change, based on the professional data provided by the censuses, in our case in Andalusia. A methodological proposal that has given visibility to another path, scarcely used in economic history, for the study of the transformation of a territory, especially in stages where statistics do not have accurate data or are simply nonexistent, as in the decades preceding the economic development and the end of the dictatorship in Spain in the twentieth century.