Publication: Spain: Development, Democracy and Equity
Loading...
Files in English
558 downloads
Published
2004
ISSN
Date
2012-06-26
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Spain stands as one of the few countries in the world which have completed a successful transition from authoritarianism and relative underdevelopment to democracy and economic abundance in the last half century. This paper explores the nature and causes of the economic underdevelopment of Spain since the 19th century and the violent collapse of its brief democratic experiment in the early 1930s. The Franco regime ? particularly its heavily regulated economy in place till the late 1950s, the decision to liberalize it in 1959, and the period of rapid growth that followed -- are discussed. A democratic transition, which occurred following the death of Franco in 1975, was possible due to the economic growth and the formation of a broad middle class in the 1960s. Also discussed is the impact of democratization on the structure of the welfare state in Spain.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Boix, Carles. 2004. Spain: Development, Democracy and Equity. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9209 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Faith, Equity, and Development(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005)The rise of identity politics has given resurgence to a variety of religious movements in the last few decades that have seriously challenged the ideas enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). At least three factors appear to have influenced the extent to and manner in which, these movements have negotiated identity politics and challenged the UDHR. These are: 1) the extent of intra-religious competition in the country; 2) the effectiveness of governance in the country; and 3) whether the focus of the religious movement is on Western or traditional notions of development.Publication Growth and Equity in Finland(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005)Finnish economic history during the "long" 20th century, with a special emphasis on policies for equity and growth, is reviewed. IT is argued that Finland developed from a poor, vulnerable and conflict-prone country to a modern economy in part through policies geared at both growth and equity, such as land reform and compulsory schooling. The state participated in economic activity both indirectly and directly in the post-war period, implementing many social policy reforms that facilitated the functioning of the labor market and led to greater equity. Centralized collective bargaining was just one of the many means through which central government intervened in the economy. Both the long-run growth record and the equality of different kinds of economic outcomes are fairly positive. This suggests that facilitating economic growth through such policies that further more equitable outcomes may at least in the case of Finland have met with some success.Publication Beyond Categories: Power, Recognition and the Conditions for Equity(World Bank, 2004)Poverty and the development of inter-group inequalities in Uganda, with particular reference to ethnic communities and women, are studied. This paper contends that assets and opportunities alone are unlikely to solve inequality. Using the Batwa people and women in Uganda as examples, it shows that equity requires deep understanding and real knowledge of the groups, subgroups and individuals that policy-makers aim to support. It is also critical to understand the institutional arrangements, policy responses and social and political alliances that support reformist collective action and political agency that hold inequality in place.Publication Symbolic Public Goods and the Coordination of Collective Action: A Comparison of Local Development in India and Indonesia(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2004)Most economists think of common property as physical - a body of water, a forest - and as bounded within geographic space. In this paper, building on work in social theory, the author argues that common property can also be social-defined within symbolic space. People can be bound by well-defined symbolic agglomerations that have characteristics similar to common property. He calls these "symbolic public goods" (SPGs) and makes the case that such constructs are central to understanding collective action. He illustrates the point by contrasting how conceptions of nationalism in Indonesia and India created SPGs that resulted in very different strategies of local development. Indonesia emphasized collective action by the poor that resulted in a form of regressive taxation, enforced by the ideology of svadaya gotong royong (community self-help) that was both internalized and coercively enforced. India emphasized democratic decentralization through the panchayat system driven by the Gandhian ideology of gram swaraj (self-reliant villages). This has resulted in an unusual equity-efficiency tradeoff. Indonesia has delivered public services much more efficiently than India did, but at the cost of democratic freedoms and voice. The author argues that the challenge for these countries is not to undermine their existing SPGs but to build on them. Indonesia should retain the spirit of svadaya gotong royong but channel it in an equitable and democratic direction, while India should build the capacity of the panchayat system by giving it fiscal teeth, while promoting underutilized institutions such as Gram Sabhas (village meetings) that encourage accountability and transparency.Publication Mineral Wealth and Equitable Development(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2004)In theory, new mineral wealth should offer governments a chance to boost economic growth and reduce inequality. In practice, it often leads to economic stagnation, civil conflict, and heightened inequality. To avoid these problems, governments must navigate a complex series of economic, social, and political challenges. One of the most difficult challenges is deciding how to deal equitably with the regional or local communities where the extraction occurs. The use of transparency, multi-stakeholder dialogues, and special attention to human rights and security can help reduce these risks.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Deliberative Democracy in India(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-03)This paper traces the evolution of deliberative institutions in India to understand the role of deliberation in democratic life, as well as the ways in which deliberative bodies influence, and are influenced by, entrenched social inequality. The paper first unpacks the historical roots of Indian deliberation in the pre-colonial and colonial periods, emphasizing the ways in which religious traditions fostered a culture of debate and dialogue. The paper then explores the interplay between Western liberal philosophers, most notably Henry Maine, and Indian political thinkers, including Gandhi and Ambedkar, on participatory democracy in India. The discussion then highlights the continued dialogue between Indian and Western ideas in the push for greater participatory development. Finally, the paper probes the current incarnation of state-sponsored deliberation in India -- namely, village assemblies known as gram sabhas under the constitutionally mandated system of Indian village democracy or Panchayati Raj -- and reviews the growing empirical scholarship about these village assemblies.Publication On Defining and Measuring the Informal Sector(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-03)A range of alternative empirical definitions of informal activity have been employed in the literature. Choice of definition is often dictated by data availability. Different definitions may imply very different conceptual understandings of informality. In this paper the authors investigate the degree of congruence between three definitions of informality based on employment contract registration, social security protection, and the characteristics of the employer and employment using Brazilian household survey data for the period 1992 to 2001. The authors present evidence showing that 64 percent of the economically active population are informal according to at least one definition, but only 40 percent are informal according to all three. Steady compositional changes have been taking place among informal workers, conditional on definition. The econometric analysis reveals that the conditional impact of particular factors (demographic, educational attainment, and family circumstances) on the likelihood of informality varies considerably from one definition to another. The results suggest growing heterogeneity within the informal sector. Therefore, the authors argue that informal activity may be as much associated with entrepreneurial dynamism as with any desire to avoid costly contract registration and social protection. However, the authors confirm there is no a priori reason for entrepreneurial activity to be unprotected. Consequently definitions of informality based on occupation and employer size seem the most arbitrary in practice even if conceptually well-founded.Publication Cigarette Affordability in China, 2001-2016(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-08-01)This study investigates the affordability of cigarettes in China between 2001 and 2016. In the past two decades, China has achieved unprecedented economic growth rates. The country’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP) has increased at an average annual rate of 10 percent. Rapid economic growth increases people’s purchasing power and makes cigarettes more affordable, as income gains overrun cigarette price increases. The results show that average-price cigarettes in China were 1.85 times more affordable in 2016 than in 2001, while the cheapest category of cigarettes, typically consumed by low-income persons, became 2.09 times more affordable over this period. Thus, cheap cigarettes aimed at low income Chinese consumers exhibit higher levels of affordability, and have increased their affordability faster, than other cigarettes aimed at average income consumers. The study estimates the affordability elasticity of cigarette consumption in China at -0.6, suggesting that a 10 percent increase in cigarette affordability will result in 6.01 percent increase in cigarette consumption. Cigarette affordability in China has also increased in comparison with other countries. China’s cigarette affordability was still at a low level compared with other countries in the 1990s, but increased quickly and to a high level within just two decades. Findings from this study have important implications for tax policy, pertaining to tobacco prices and tobacco control. These findings confirm that for tax increases to reduce the number of smokers and deaths in China, policy makers need to review the potential effects of rising income and prices with a focus on reducing cigarette affordability. It is also important to look at affordability not only on average but by income group - in this study proxied by using average and rural incomes.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Employment and Poverty in the Philippines(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-12)This study analyzes labor market performance in the Philippines from the perspective of workers’ welfare. It argues that pervasive in-work poverty is the main challenge facing labor policy. Poverty is primarily due to low earning capacity of the poor and to their limited access to regular and productive jobs. Behind these are the two interrelated root causes of in-work poverty—low education of the poor, and the scarcity of productive job opportunities. The labor market is segmented into “good” and “bad” jobs, with the poor working in the latter. They hold jobs that are informal, temporary or casual, and low-paid. Widespread informality means that the poor neither benefit from the minimum wage policy nor from employment protection legislation. They do not benefit from wage growth either, because their bargaining power is weak. “Good” jobs are so few, especially in rural areas, that even better educated workers are often forced to take unskilled jobs and work as low-paid laborers. The reduction of in-work poverty hinges on removing constraints to gainful employment in both supply side (better education and skills) and demand side (better jobs). It is critical that the young poor have improved access to quality education, and be equipped with skills required in the modern sector of the economy. But in parallel, better jobs need to be created, which can be attained from the growth of the formal and higher value added sector of the economy. The process of structural transformation should be supported by effective labor policy. Labor regulations need to be made simpler and more flexible to facilitate the reallocation of labor from less to more productive activities, and from informal to formal sector. Targeted training programs have the potential to address the problem of low skills among the poor workers, especially the young ones. Such programs should be developed on a pilot basis and expanded if proven to be cost-effective.