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Aggregate economic activity multiplied fifty times between 1850 and 2015, at an average cumulative growth rate of 2.4% per year (Fig. ).

Modern economic growth is defined by the sustained improvement in GDP per head. From 1850 to 2015 while population trebled, real GDP per head in Spain experienced nearly

A breakdown of GDP per head into labour productivity and the amount of labour used per person can be made. Thus, GDP per person (GDP/N) will be expressed as GDP per hour worked (GDP/H), a measure of labour productivity, times the number of hours worked per person (H/N), a measure of effort.

A long-run view of Spain’s economic performance cannot be completed without placing it in comparative perspective. In Fig. , Spain’s real GDP per head is presented along estimates for other large Western European countries: Italy, France, the UK, and Germany, plus the USA, the economic leader that represents the technological frontier, all expressed in purchasing power parity-adjusted 2011 dollars to allow for countries’ differences in price levels (Fig. ).

But how did GDP per head gains affect economic well-being? Within the existing national accounts framework, Sitglitz et al. (: 23–25) recommend to look at net rather than gross measures, in order to take into account the depreciation of capital goods. Net National Disposable Income (NNDI) measures income accruing to Spanish nationals, rather than production in Spain, and also accounts for capital consumption. NNDI provides, therefore, a more accurate measure of the impact of economic growth on average incomes than GDP.

In historical national accounts, as for most developing countries, the most reliable and easiest to estimate GDP figures are those obtained through the production approach. As for most developing countries, real product has been computed from physical indicators rather than as a residual obtained from independently deflated output and inputs.

Measuring aggregate economic activity through the expenditure side represents adding up all final products or sales to final demand. Ideally, each expenditure component should be computed with actual data from households, firms and public administration. Unfortunately, lack of direct evidence renders such a task impossible and the so-called commodity flows approach provides a second-best alternative.

Dearth of data forced CEN to split output indices into two segments with 1929 as the link year. In each case, independent production indices for agriculture and industry were obtained, from which an aggregate index was derived to approximate national income. No regard was paid to services and was implicitly assumed that output in services evolved as a weighted average of agricultural and industrial production.

National accounts rely on complete information on quantities and prices to compute GDP for a single benchmark year, which is, then, extrapolated forward on the basis of limited information for a sample of goods and services.

Spain’s Statistical Office (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, INE) provides yearly series of ‘resident’ population from 1971.