La financiación del desarrollo agrario valenciano, 1750-1914

This paper seeks to analyze the main ways of financing agrarian activities in the Valencian region from the end of the Ancien Régime and up until First World War. First, the formal financial institutions, generally linked to local entities, such as agricultural banks, mutual societies, cooperatives, and savings banks, are studied. A further aim of the paper is to show that trio role of such institutions in financing the agrarian transformation was not significant. at least until the emergence of the Cooperativist movement from 1890 onwards. On the contrary, in the second part, two local examples of financing are analyzed by means of non-institutionalised private credit, reflected in the reselling agreement, the censuses, and mainly private loans. From the minutes and archives of the Notaries Public, the role of the informal credit mechanisms and informal market is shown. The informal market was strongly based on personal relations and trust. Knowledge was at the heart of the system as the lack of specialization of the Spanish and Valencian financial system during the 19th Century facilitated the development of local liquidity markets whose essential features were determined by the demand.