The political weakness evinced by the Majorcan monarchy was not matched by economic weakness within the Majorcan territories. The monarchy, if it exploited its tax rights to the full, stood to gain great wealth. There is plentiful evidence for the success of the kings of Majorca in maximising their income; the documents recording the Reebudes and Dades (receipts and outgoings) of the royal court, have been analysed by Sastre Moll and Santamaría. A cursory glance at the impressive royal building programmes, which resulted in the erection of the Palace of the Kings of Majorca in Perpignan, of a smaller palace in Montpellier, and of a much rebuilt Almudaina Palace in Ciutat de Mallorca, suggests too that money was there to be spent; the kings of Majorca lived in style, and their lack of political clout was in part compensated by an attempt to project an image of themselves as real kings on familiar terms with powerful neighbours such as the Avignon popes and the Angevins of Naples, who were counts of nearby Provence.

The tendency of recent research has been to argue that the rulers of the Majorcan kingdom did initiate imaginative economic policies. There are several areas of activity in which this policy can be identified: town foundations, not merely in the Balearics but on the mainland;