Using a database of about 375,000 individual observations, which represent over two million days worked, this article studies building workers’ remunerations and how labour markets functioned in eighteenth-century Madrid. We present new wage series that correct and improve the evidence existing in the literature and provide an explanation for the long-run wage stickiness found in the city. Economic factors, rather than customs or guild regulations, explain why wage rates remained unaltered for about 100 years. The reconstruction of the working lives of 100 of the workers who took part in the construction of the Royal Palace of Madrid provides the first evidence of wage profiles for pre-industrial times. They demonstrate that every wage rate was attached to a certain level of skill. Craftsmen's wages increased as they gained abilities, as human capital theory predicts, while returns to age or experience were negligible in the case of unskilled workers. This points to the existence of segmented labour markets in the building sector in early modern Spain.

中文翻译：

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18 世纪西班牙的技能和人力资本：马德里皇宫建设中的工资和工作生活（1737-1805）†

本文使用一个包含约 375,000 个人观察的数据库，代表超过 200 万天的工作，研究建立工人的薪酬以及劳动力市场如何在 18 世纪的马德里运作。我们提出了新的工资系列，以纠正和改进文献中现有的证据，并为城市中发现的长期工资粘性提供解释。经济因素，而不是海关或行会规定，解释了为什么工资率在大约 100 年间保持不变。参与马德里皇宫建设的 100 名工人的工作生活的重建提供了前工业时代工资状况的第一个证据。它们表明，每个工资率都与一定的技能水平相关。工匠的工资随着能力的提高而增加，正如人力资本理论所预测的那样，而对于非技术工人来说，年龄或经验的回报可以忽略不计。这表明在近代西班牙早期，建筑部门存在分割的劳动力市场。