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Land reform and conflict before the Civil War: landowner response to tenancy reform in 1930s Catalonia

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  • Jordi Domenech
  • Francisco Herreros

Abstract

This article studies the impact of insecure property rights on the behaviour of owners of land before the Spanish Civil War. The theoretical literature on land reform argues that legal threats to the status quo determine agrarian organization, with owners selling land and moving to other asset classes or engaging in large‐scale substitution of sharecroppers and tenants with wage labourers. This study, which uses municipal data on tenant evictions in Catalonia in 1934–5, does not find that uncertainty over property rights in the 1930s meant that owners tried to substitute tenants with wage labourers, especially in the case of the controversial rabassa morta contracts on vineyards. Here it is argued that after 40 years of organizational adjustment to shocks related to phylloxera infestations, legal changes, urbanization, and changes in relative prices, by the 1930s the margin for adjustment was small.

Suggested Citation

  • Jordi Domenech & Francisco Herreros, 2018. "Land reform and conflict before the Civil War: landowner response to tenancy reform in 1930s Catalonia," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 71(4), pages 1322-1348, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:71:y:2018:i:4:p:1322-1348
    DOI: 10.1111/ehr.12614
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Domenech, Jordi & Herreros, Francisco, 2017. "Land reform and peasant revolution. Evidence from 1930s Spain," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 82-103.
    2. Conning, Jonathan H. & Robinson, James A., 2007. "Property rights and the political organization of agriculture," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 416-447, March.
    3. Guinnane, Timothy W & Miller, Ronald I, 1997. "The Limits to Land Reform: The Land Acts in Ireland, 1870-1909," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 45(3), pages 591-612, April.
    4. Michael Albertus & Oliver Kaplan, 2013. "Land Reform as a Counterinsurgency Policy," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 57(2), pages 198-231, April.
    5. Alston, Lee J. & Libecap, Gary D. & Mueller, Bernardo, 2000. "Land Reform Policies, the Sources of Violent Conflict, and Implications for Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 162-188, March.
    6. Carmona, Juan & Simpson, James, 1998. "The "rabassa morta" in Catalan viticulture: the rise and decline of a long term sharecropping contract, 1670s-1920s," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH wh980402, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    7. Carmona, Juan & Simpson, James, 1999. "The “Rabassa Morta” in Catalan Viticulture: The Rise and Decline of a Long-Term Sharecropping Contract, 1670s–1920s," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 59(2), pages 290-315, June.
    8. Samuel Garrido, 2017. "Sharecropping was sometimes efficient: sharecropping with compensation for improvements in European viticulture," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 70(3), pages 977-1003, August.
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    1. Betrán, Concepción & Huberman, Michael, 2024. "Unintended consequences: International trade shocks and electoral outcomes during the Second Spanish Republic, 1931–1936," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).

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