The Economy of Catalonia

first place, the exports of Catalan companies to the Spanish market would
clearly be reduced. Secondly, a process of substituting imports from
Spain could arise in Catalonia as a result of a counter-boycott of Spanish
products. Indeed, it may well be imagined that the Catalans, faced with a
political conflict like the one considered here, would show the same social
reactions as the Spanish. Consequently, the most reasonable working
hypothesis is that the boycott would be symmetrical. The boycott’s
strictly commercial effects would have consequences for the economic
activity and the generation of added value in Catalonia and such consequences
should be quantified. In other words, the specific question to be
answered is this: what would be the effect on the Catalan GDP of a politically
motivated trade boycott carried out by some sectors of the Spanish
market?
Essentially, what the aforementioned book does is to compare two situations
of the Catalan economy in 2005. 55 These two situations are, on the
one hand, the real Catalan economy, as described in the official statistics
and specifically in the input-output table and, on the other hand, a simulated
Catalan economy which takes into account the economic effects
derived from the changes produced by a hypothetical independence.
These changes, as stated earlier, centre on the reduction of Catalan exports
to Spain (thus reducing production, added value and jobs) and on
the substitution of imports from Spain (entailing contributions in the opposite
direction)..
One obvious difficulty when presenting the results of this analysis is that
it is impossible to determine, even approximately, the effective extent of
such a boycott, that is to say, the specific reduction in exports to Spain.
In the book “Sense Espanya” we describe the available evidence on
which the determination of this variable could be based, taking into account
existing opinion polls, comparative experiences at an international
level and the Spanish boycott episode of 2005, but it remains impossible
to establish unequivocally the real extent of a possible boycott. For this
reason we present the results of our simulation with its full range of possibilities,
including all possible scenarios, under the hypothesis that the
55. All the details of the calculation method can be found in the article by Cuadras
Morató and Guinjoan entitled ”Una approximació a l’impacte sobre el VAB català de la
reducció dels fluxos comercials entre Catalunya i la resta d’Espanya” (An approximation
to the impact on the Catalan GVA of the reduction of trade flows between Catalonia
and the rest of Spain), Revista Econòmica de Catalunya 2012).
Independence and boycott 185