Seeing credit and property rights from below: The experience of Catalan smallholders in the eighteenth century
研究18世纪加泰罗尼亚地区利率下降对贫困小农的影响，发现产权重新定义时，有担保贷款利率降低有利于贫困群体，强调从底层视角分析贫困消除。
Abstract The Catalan case in south‐western Europe offers us the opportunity to take a detailed look at the impact a lowering of the interest rate may have had on the poor of a specific area. It is vital to examine how property rights operated in specific contexts, given the close relationship between land and credit markets. Our working hypothesis is that, in some instances where property rights were redefined, as happened in eighteenth‐century Catalonia, the reduction of the interest rate in secured loans benefitted the poorer social groups. The findings of this research, in line with those of some development economists, suggest that only an empirical and bottom‐up perspective allows for a proper analysis of the eradication of poverty by placing it within the real picture of social change.