The cost of pactisme

It is disturbing that, both in demographic and economic terms, Catalonia has been able to grow more in historical periods in which it has enjoyed less self-government. To understand this paradox, I explore here, on the one hand, whether part of this historical evolution is consistent with two rent seeking hypotheses (internal capture, among Catalans, and external, towards other Spanish regions); and, on the other hand, how two institutional changes that occurred in the last quarter of the last century could have impacted both rentseeking mechanisms: the introduction of a de facto federal system in the 1978 Spanish Constitution and the entry of Spain into the future European Union.