Article:  Book-publishing clusters in Barcelona and Madrid and their life-cycle after 1898

Jordi CATALAN et Guillermo GIL-MUGARZA

Département d’histoire et d’institutions économiques
Université de Barcelone

Abstract

Spain ranks among the world’s top five book exporters. Inside the country, book production is highly concentrated in two industrial clusters, Barcelona and Madrid. The question is whether these two clusters have been dominated by a few hub companies, following the pattern traced by Markusen, Porter and Chandler, or rather by small firms, as the neo-Marshallian paradigm postulates. This article analyzes data on book exports by publishing houses in Barcelona and Madrid for two moments in time, 1931 and 1990. In every case, the Gini index was above the 0,5 threshold, and the 10 % top exporters concentrated more than 30 % of the exports. Therefore, the article concludes that the Spanish book publishing industry has behaved like a hub-and-spoke district throughout the twentieth century. Leading firms have changed over time and arguably a most relevant factor in the process has been Latin America. The region has been a double-edged sword for Spanish book publishing houses, given that its economic prosperity has helped book giants to rise as much as its economic downturns have made them fall.