All roads lead to market integration. Lessons from a spatial analysis of the wheat market in 18th century Spain. Alexandra L. Cermeño and Carlos Santiago-Caballero Working Papers in Economic History 2020-02 ISSN: 2341-2542 Serie disponible en http://hdl.handle.net/10016/19600 Web: http://portal.uc3m.es/portal/page/portal/instituto_figuerola Correo electrónico:
[email protected] Creative Commons Reconocimiento- NoComercial- SinObraDerivada 3.0 España (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 ES) All roads lead to market integration. Lessons from a spatial analysis of the wheat market in 18th century Spain.1 Alexandra L. Cermeño (Lund University)2 Carlos Santiago-Caballero (Universidad Carlos III) 3 ABSTRACT This paper uses newly collected data from a large-scale census (Catastro de la Ensenada) to investigate the scale and causes of market integration in eighteenth century Spain. We use wheat prices observed in more than 5,200 municipalities to analyse the local spatial dependence of prices. We detect several regional clusters in the centre and coasts but find that these were not integrated with each other. We then investigate the first nature, second nature, and demand side determinants of these clusters and find that although geographical constrains like terrain roughness play a negatively significant role, the transportation network allowed connected municipalities to alleviate such obstacles. Our results suggest that unfavourable geographical conditions can be overcome by investments in transportation infrastructures. Keywords: Early modern, market integration, grain markets, prices, geography. 1 Declarations of interest: none. 2 Email:
[email protected]. Department of Economic History. Lund University Box 7083. 220 07 Lund, Sweden.