Entre macro et micro [ Les comptabilités agricoles du XVIIIe siècle]

Abstract

Abstract. Between Macro and Micro. Agricultural Accounts in the 18th Century. This article serves as a guide tu use of « small » agricultural accounts. It is useless to seek answers from these documents pertaining to macroeconomic history, global volume, or change in agricultural production, given that these require relying on hypotheses, on calculations based on large multipliers. The accounts serve another purpose. We are beyond the discovery stage in rural history. The best use to be made of small accounts lies in refining our knowledge of an agrarian system. Thus, they should be considered as sources for microeconomic history, that is, as documents read for their precision and typicality. Analyses requires working with small sums, counting and interpreting everything, while avoiding hypotheses, in order to obtain a close reading of the working logic of farming. For instance, an analysis of animal management reveals the level of specialization reached on a farm, and attention to the flow of money and herds measures the farm's place in larger economy.

¿Quiénes eran los mozos en las regiones mediterráneas? Salarios y movilidad de los mozos en el mercado de trabajo de Mallorca, 1654-1680

“…Por una parte, el conocido problema de representatividad de la fuente (Antoine, 2000). Los libros de cuentas de explotación únicamente abarcan las trayectorias laborales de los mozos contratados en el predio estudiado, en un contexto, como se verá, en el que operaban otros predios, y en un mercado de trabajo que no era local.…”