Explaining the pain in Spain

The number of Spaniards with a job fell by more than 18 per cent between mid-2007 and the beginning of 2014. That is a staggering sum, and it helps explain why Podemos, the anti-establishment party, is expected to win a large share of the vote in Spain’s elections later this year.

The literalist explanation is that Spain’s real GDP fell about 6 per cent lower at the same time as Spanish labour productivity rose around 12 per cent. You could blame the euro crisis, the overhang of private debt, fiscal austerity, an undercapitalised banking system, and the strictures of the single currency for the former, and perhaps attribute the latter to the Spanish government’s reform programmes.

While we don’t want to dismiss the importance of policy errors and unsuitable exchange rate regimes, much of Spain’s suffering in the bust can be explained by the structure of its economy in the long boom that preceded it. On the eve of the downturn, Spain had the misfortune of looking like a Mediterranean hybrid of Nevada and Michigan. Compared to those US states, which ostensibly benefit from their membership in a functional monetary union, Spain has actually done quite well.