The Economy of Catalonia

1
The position of an independent
Catalonia in the
international context
Oriol Martinez Alòs-Moner and Vicent Pastor
(Translated by Mike Holt)
Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to discuss various features of the Catalan economy
which form a basis for appreciating the solid foundation of its aim to
break with the current status quo of political union with Spain. A separation
process can never be free of costs, either for society or of course for
the economy, but we accept the validity - including in the case of Catalonia
- of professors Alesina and Spolaore’s argument (2003), that in contexts
of trade integration (common markets) and the absence of armed conflict,
the tendency is for countries to be formed on the basis of uniform circumstances.
This is due to the high costs of determining the compensations
necessary to overcome the heterogeneity inherent to large countries.
The process which began in Catalonia with the massive demonstration of
11 September 2012 and the subsequent elections of 25 November the
same year aims for the citizens of Catalonia to decide in a democratic manner
what political framework is to be used to organise Catalan society and
the economy. From an economic point of view at least, this means focusing
attention on how to increase the per capita GDP available in Catalonia
(with the distribution of income and social benefits determined by the
government in power at the time) while taking into account market volume.
In this respect, it can be reasonably accurately stated that Catalonia’s
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