2
GDP and GDP Per Head
Modern economic growth is def i ned by the sustained improvement in
GDP per head. From 1850 to 2015 while population trebled, real GDP
per head in Spain experienced nearly a 16-fold increase, growing at an
annual rate of1.7% (Fig. 2.1 and Table 2.1). GDP growth was intensive,
that is, driven by the advance in GDP per person, but for exceptional
periods of Civil War, Depression, and Recession (Fig. 2.2). Such an
improvement took place at an uneven pace. Per capita GDP grew at 0.7%
over 1850–1950, doubling its initial level. During the next quarter of a
century, the Golden Age, its pace accelerated more than sevenfold so, by
1974, per capita income was 3.6 times higher than in 1950. Although the
economy decelerated from 1974 onwards, and its rate ofgrowth per head
shrank to one-half that of the Golden Age, per capita GDP more than
doubled between 1974 and 2007. The Great Recession (2008–2013)
shrank per capita income by 11%, but, by 2015, its level was still 83%
higher than at the time ofSpain’s EU accession (1985).
Different long swings can be distinguished in which growth rates
deviate from the long-run trend as a result ofeconomic policies, access to
international markets, and technological change. Growth rates, measured
as average annual logarithmic rates ofvariation, are provided in Table 2.1
(c) The Author(s) 2017
L. Prados de la Escosura, Spanish Economic Growth, 1850–2015,
Palgrave Studies in Economic History, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58042-5_2
15