The tails of two cities: living conditions in Burgos and Bilbao in the first half of the 20th century

Abstract

This paper compares the living conditions of two Spanish cities during the interwar period: Burgos, provincial capital of one of the important grain-producing provinces, and Bilbao, also a provincial capital and an emerging industrial center. The two cities, opposed in productive character, were well-connected by a railway spanning 194 kilometers. We contrast whether these neighboring cities experienced similar changes in their living standards over time. Specifically, we analyze the effects of changes in prices and income on household consumption, mortality rates, causes of death, and pawning. To conduct our analysis, we have collected homogeneous comparable data series from the official monthly statistics of both municipalities. We find that the impacts of price and wage changes during and after World War I and the Great Depression differed significantly between the two cities.