1. José Joaquín García Gómez University of Alicante jjgarcia@ua.es 1

2. Index Introduction The Consumer Price Index of Alcoy (1836-1913) Real wages during the Industrialization: The case of Alcoy Diet and nutritional status of the workers in Alcoy Conclusions: the importance of public intervention 2

3. Introduction Alcoy, pioneer city of the Industrial Revolution in Spain High factory density Accelerated demographic growth and anarchic urbanization: market failures and negative external effects Slight improvement of the income per capita 3

4. Introduction Negative medioambiental, sanitary, alimentary and working conditions Deterioration of non chrematistic welfare elements was not balanced by the monetary elements: drop of the standard of living 4

5. Introduction Welfare only raised when recovering its non monetary elements: a) Improvement of the nutritional status b) Public intervention to mitigate the market failures of the incipient industrial and capitalist system 5

6. Introduction Our goal is to analyse: a) Consumption (through its proxy, real wages) b) Nutrition (through diet and calories) c) Its impact on mortality and height (indicators of the standard of living) 6

7. CPI in Alcoy (1836-1913) Prices of goods and services consumed by households, represented by a consumer basket. 36.000 data references of local prices Two sources: MERCURIAL and INSTITUTIONAL account books Archives: Municipal, Provincial and National Statistical Office Reduction to one annual price in each product, exchanging ancient monetary units to pesetas measures to metrical system 7

8. CPI in Alcoy (1836-1913) Consumption baskets: a) Hospital´s account books (1837, 1852, 1871, 1918) b) Social Reforms Commission Reports (1884) Applying Laspeyres formula: 8

9. WEIGHT COEFFICIENTS OF THE CONSUMPTION BASKETS OF HOUSEHOLDS IN ALCOY (1836-1936) 1836-18521853-18701871-19181919-1926 ITEM %% FEEDING 77,7877,5869,8868,90 Bread 25,7122,7321,5616,60 Lamb 15,4910,478,670,40 Pork 15,4910,478,670,05 Beef 0,00 23,04 Wine and spirits 5,415,6010,152,48 Oil 3,656,281,431,57 Legumes 3,173,292,722,41 Rice 2,653,862,685,44 Potatoes 0,000,560,002,46 Chocolate 1,792,794,333,78 Fresh fish 0,00 Codfish 0,806,136,640,22 Milk 0,000,820,001,42 Fruits and vegetables 3,182,611,450,17 Salt 0,001,631,080,87 Eggs 0,460,340,507,98 HOUSING 10,71 DRESSING 7,14 6,34 CLEANING AND HYGIENE 2,860,291,564,91 FUEL AND LIGHTING 1,514,2810,719,14 Fire Wood 0,254,023,356,08 Petrol 0,00 7,142,56 Coal 1,270,260,220,50 TOTAL 100,00 9

10. 10 1913=100

11. Real wages during the industrialization: the case of Alcoy 12.300 data Sources: a) 1836-1879: records of ARFPA, the Hospital´s account books and the budget settlements of the City Hall, completed with the occasional available statistics and historical press b) 1880-1914: Census Books and Labor Agreements 11

12. Real wages during the industrialization: the case of Alcoy Arithmetic mean of nominal wages in agricultural, industrial and building construction sectors Deflation of the series using CPI Result: lethargic and irregular evolution Comparation and contrast with mortality and height 12

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15. Diet and nutritional status of the workers in Alcoy Real wages (overall consumption) don´t explain welfare evolution during the industrialization of Alcoy We choose food consumption and nutrition: - 5 Budgets of food consumption - Sources: Monthly summaries of introductions in 1884, 1897 y 1912, and Hospital food expenditures in 1852, 1868 y 1928 - Conversion to Kilocalories (source: www.bedca.com)www.bedca.com - Comparation with mortality and height: strengthen correlation 15

16. 16 Daily average grammes per capita and per day in Alcoy.

17. 17 Own elaboration from the explained data sources. Conversion to kcal. from Cussó (2005) and www.bedca.com

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20. Conclusions Lack of correlation between real wages (overall consumption and mortality and height Other factors affected negatively to welfare (enviroment, nutrition, work conditions, sanitary state…) These were the negative external effects of industrialization and urbanization Nutrition is highly correlationed with mortality and height: the standard of living only rose when food did 20

21. Conclusions Public expenditure in sanitary reform mitigated the negative external effects of industrialization Data compiled from municipal account books Strong correlation between public expenditure per capita in the sanitary reform and mortality and height Until the last decades of 19 th higher real income and food consumption did not make up for a better life conditions Between the late 19 th century and 1913, when healthcare reform started up, we could already feel optimistic 21

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24. Conclusions Low consumption Poor public revenues No intervention Poor education Inadecuate nutrition Insufficient calories Mortality Low productivity Low wages Diseases 24