This article studies the evolution of nutritional inequality, measured through the male adult height, in one of the poorest regions of Spain, in southwestern Europe: Extremadura. With a wide sample of statures of recruits born between 1855 and 1979, conscripted between 1876 and 2000, the research delves into the urban-rural height gap using coefficients of variation, tests of equality of means and proxy variables of a socioeconomic nature. The results of the analysis reveal that the strong anthropometric growth that Extremadura experienced since the last decades of the 19th century was accompanied by a less internal inequality. The lower heterogeneity did not eliminate, however, the urban-rural height gap during the period under study. In this sense, despite the absence of environmental differences between urban and rural areas in Extremadura, there was a clear rural height penalty in the region from the mid-19th century to the late 20th century. Rural punishment was fundamentally related to the greater presence of agrarian workers and the lower presence of wealthy families in villages and small towns. On the contrary, educational differences or differences in terms of nutritional health were not as decisive in the rural height penalization, at least when such differences are measured with the sources of military recruitment.

Talla, educación y desigualdad nutricional en Extremadura desde mediados del siglo XIX

With a sample of heights of almost 60,000 men, born between 1855 and 1979 and recruited between 1876 and 2000, our work analyzes the nutritional gap between the agrarian and non-agrarian population in Extremadura, a Spanish region located among the poorest ones in Europe. The analysis reveals that this difference is not only statistically significant, but also tends to increase as the average stature of the active population grows. Among the causes of the agrarian height penalty, our article focuses mainly on the economic differences. However, the research also insists on the roots of these differences, especially those linked to the adverse physical conditions of the territory, the dynamics of the Christian conquest in the Middle Ages and the strong and persistent concentration of land ownership in the region. In short, this paper concludes that the anthropometric gap between agrarian and non-agrarian workers is due not only to economic causes, but also to geographical, historical and institutional reasons.

The transformation of cork into a wide range of industrial products serves as an excellent example of a circular bioeconomy. It holds valuable lessons that can influence other industrial sectors. However, given its concentration primarily in the Iberian Peninsula, the economic profitability and the environmental sustainability of the cork business often goes unnoticed beyond the boundaries of the southwestern Mediterranean regions. Drawing upon the theoretical framework of industrial ecosystems and leveraging specialized multidisciplinary literature on cork, this chapter argues that the creation of several local productive systems (LPS) was essential for achieving environmental and economic sustainability. This trend began in the mid-20th century when the cork industry gradually disappeared from countries that did not produce raw cork, such as the US or the UK. The closer physical proximity between raw materials and agglomerations of cork SMEs facilitated the reduction of transaction costs, strengthened successful business cooperation, and encouraged the reuse of industrial waste. Currently, the cork business stands as an indisputable paradigm of circular bioeconomy, enjoying significant success even amidst competition with synthetic products in segments like wine stoppers and insulation and coating within the construction sector.

La presente investigación pretende acabar con la idea de que la vuelta al trono de Fernando VII a partir de 1814 supuso la parálisis total de la política de desamortización municipal desarrollada en España por las Cortes de Cádiz. Las fuentes utilizadas para cumplir con esta pretensión proceden de las indagaciones que llevó a cabo la Dirección General de Propios y Arbitrios del Reino entre 1824 y 1833 para legitimar las ventas espontáneas producidas durante la Guerra de la Independencia. Estas averiguaciones, contrastadas con la escasa bibliografía existente para la monarquía fernandina, permiten detectar la presencia de una institu­ción abiertamente partidaria de la privatización integral de la riqueza concejil y comunal en las entrañas mismas de la administración absolu­tista, así como la realización de decenas de transferencias en enfiteusis, autorizadas por la Corona y repartidas por toda la nación. La conclu­sión más relevante al respecto es que el doble reinado del último monarca absoluto (1814-1820 y 1823-1833) no solo no dejó en suspenso el proceso enajenador, reavivado al calor del conflicto napoleónico, sino que, hasta cierto punto, contribuyó a legitimarlo e, incluso, a diver­sificarlo con nuevos modelos de traspaso.