IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ahe/dtaehe/1405.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Of Firms and Captives: Railway Infrastructures and the Economics of Forced Labour (Spain, 1937 – 1957)

Author

Listed:
  • Fernando Mendiola

    (Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa, Iruñea – Pamplona, Spain)

Abstract

This article deals with the main economic keys that explain the evolution in the deployment of prisoners and prisoners of war on extending and reconstructing the railways. The first part presents a list of the works carried out during the Spanish civil war and the Francoist dictatorship. Subsequently, an analysis is made of the three main variables of work according to institutional change and the business structure of the Spanish railway. Thanks to this variety of situation, we can better understand to which extent labour supply and productivity levels are on the basis of the evolution of enterprises strategies towards this kind of labour in different situations, such as war economy, after-war reconstruction, and dictatorship, until 1957.

Suggested Citation

  • Fernando Mendiola, 2014. "Of Firms and Captives: Railway Infrastructures and the Economics of Forced Labour (Spain, 1937 – 1957)," Documentos de Trabajo (DT-AEHE) 1405, Asociación Española de Historia Económica.
    • Handle: RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:1405
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://media.timtul.com/media/web_aehe/dt-aehe-1405_20240108094721.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Prados de la Escosura, Leandro & Rosés, Joan R., 2010. "Human capital and economic growth in Spain, 1850-2000," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 520-532, October.
    2. Fernando Mendiola Gonzalo, 2012. "El impacto de los trabajos forzados en la economía vasconavarra (1937-1945)," Investigaciones de Historia Económica - Economic History Research (IHE-EHR), Journal of the Spanish Economic History Association, Asociación Española de Historia Económica, vol. 8(02), pages 104-116.
    3. Williamson, Oliver, 2009. "The Theory of the Firm as Governance Structure: From Choice to Contract," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 6, pages 111-134, December.
    4. Buchheim, Christoph & Scherner, Jonas, 2006. "The Role of Private Property in the Nazi Economy: The Case of Industry," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(2), pages 390-416, June.
    5. Lund, Joachim, 2010. "Building Hitler's Europe: Forced Labor in the Danish Construction Business during World War II," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(3), pages 479-499, October.
    6. Joachim Lund, 2010. "Building Hitler's Europe: Forced Labor in the Danish Construction Business during World War II," Business History Review, Harvard Business School, vol. 84(3), pages 479-499, September.
    7. Fernando Mendiola, 2012. "El trabajo forzado en infraestructuras ferroviarias bajo el franquismo (1938 – 1957): una estimación cuantitativa," Documentos de Trabajo - Lan Gaiak Departamento de Economía - Universidad Pública de Navarra 1204, Departamento de Economía - Universidad Pública de Navarra.
    8. Fenoaltea, Stefano, 1984. "Slavery and Supervision in Comparative Perspective: A Model," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(3), pages 635-668, September.
    9. Eggertsson,Thrainn, 1990. "Economic Behavior and Institutions," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521348911, October.
    10. Domar, Evsey D., 1970. "The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: A Hypothesis," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 30(1), pages 18-32, March.
    11. Daron Acemoglu & Alexander Wolitzky, 2011. "The Economics of Labor Coercion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(2), pages 555-600, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ogilvie, Sheilagh & Carus, A.W., 2014. "Institutions and Economic Growth in Historical Perspective," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 8, pages 403-513, Elsevier.
    2. Bernd Beber & Christopher Blattman, 2010. "The Industrial Organization of Rebellion: The Logic of Forced Labor and Child Soldiering," HiCN Working Papers 72, Households in Conflict Network.
    3. Dari-Mattiacci Giuseppe & de Oliveira Guilherme, 2021. "Slavery versus Labor," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 17(3), pages 495-568, November.
    4. Links, Calumet & Green, Erik & Fourie, Johan, 2018. "Was Slavery a Flexible Form of Labour? Division of Labour and Location Specific Skills on the Eastern Cape Frontier," African Economic History Working Paper 42/2018, African Economic History Network.
    5. Lagerlöf, Nils-Petter, 2016. "Born free," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 1-10.
    6. Fernando Mendiola Gonzalo, 2011. "Forced Labour in Franco's Spain: Workforce Supply, Profits and Productivity," Working Papers 0004, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    7. Bobonis, Gustavo J. & Morrow, Peter M., 2014. "Labor coercion and the accumulation of human capital," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 32-53.
    8. Quamrul H. Ashraf & Francesco Cinnirella & Oded Galor & Boris Gershman & Erik Hornung, 2017. "Capital-Skill Complementarity and the Emergence of Labor Emancipation," Working Papers 2017-1, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    9. Cinnirella, Francesco & Hornung, Erik, 2016. "Landownership concentration and the expansion of education," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 135-152.
    10. Fenske, James, 2010. "Institutions in African history and development: A review essay," MPRA Paper 23120, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. James Fenske, 2013. "Does Land Abundance Explain African Institutions?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123(12), pages 1363-1390, December.
    12. Robert C. Allen, 2021. "Slavery in Arabia and East Africa, 1800-1913," Working Papers 20210066, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised Jun 2021.
    13. Tyrefors Hinnerich, Bjorn & Lindgren, Erik & Pettersson-Lidbom, Per, 2017. "Political Power, Resistance to Technological Change and Economic Development: Evidence from the 19th century Sweden," Research Papers in Economics 2017:5, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    14. Jensen, Peter Sandholt & Radu, Cristina Victoria & Severgnini, Battista & Sharp, Paul, 2018. "The introduction of serfdom and labor markets," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 393, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    15. Buggle, Johannes C. & Nafziger, Steven, 2018. "The slow road from serfdom: Labor coercion and long-run development in the former Russian Empire," BOFIT Discussion Papers 22/2018, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    16. Luis Angeles, 2013. "On the Causes of the A frican Slave Trade," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(1), pages 1-26, February.
    17. Daron Acemoglu & Alexander Wolitzky, 2011. "The Economics of Labor Coercion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(2), pages 555-600, March.
    18. Bucheli, Marcelo & DeBerge, Thomas, 2024. "Multinational enterprises’ nonmarket strategies: Insights from History," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(2).
    19. Tyrefors, Björn & Lindgren, Erik & Pettersson-Lidbom, Per, 2017. "The Political Economics of Growth, Labor Control and Coercion: Evidence from a Suffrage Reform," Working Paper Series 1172, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 24 Sep 2019.
    20. Angeles, Luis, 2012. "On the causes of the African Slave Trade," SIRE Discussion Papers 2012-91, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    forced labour; railway infrastructures; railway companies; Franco´s Dictatorship; coercion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • N84 - Economic History - - Micro-Business History - - - Europe: 1913-
    • N44 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: 1913-
    • N34 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: 1913-
    • L92 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Railroads and Other Surface Transportation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:1405. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Antònia Morey (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeheeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.