Land markets and agrarian backwardness (Spain, 1904-1934)

To what extent were land markets the cause of Spanish agrarian backwardness? To address this unresolved issue, this paper uses new provincial data on average real land prices, together with a province-level variation in land productivity, to analyze the efficiency of land markets. Specifically, we test, first, whether land markets were spatially integrated and, secondly, whether land prices can be explained with the present value model. Our results suggest that land prices converged across provinces and that their variations were driven by market fundamentals. In consequence, we conclude that the institutional failure in land markets was not the cause of the relatively poor productivity performance of Spanish agriculture.