Staying dry on Spanish wine: the rejection of the 1905 Spanish-Italian trade agreement (Updated version May 2020)
Series: Working Papers. 1932.
Author: Jacopo Timini.
Published in: European Journal of Political Economy. Volume 63, June 2020, Article 101892.
Full document
Abstract
After a long debate on wine import tariffs, the Italian Parliament rejected the Spanish-
Italian trade agreement on 17 December 1905. This decision left Spain and Italy without a
bilateral trade treaty for an entire decade. In the literature, broader political issues and local
interests are alternatively indicated as the main drivers of the rejection. Based on a new
database which collects economic and political variables (including MPs personal features)
and using a probit model, this paper provides a quantitative analysis of the vote. Results
show that constituency interests had a role in determining the result of the vote on the
trade treaty. Moreover, constituency interests were also important for the “vote switchers”,
i.e. those MPs that supported the overall government policy stance in the first round, but
opposed the Spanish-Italian trade agreement in the second.