This study examines whether the transition from a system of multiple issuing banks to a monopoly on currency issuance was a step in the Bank of Spain’s becoming a central bank in the true sense of the word (a non-profit-maximizing institution); or on the contrary, whether the Bank used its...

This chapter analyses the contribution of the 1959 Plan de Estabilización (Stabilization Plan) to the economic changes that occurred in Spain during the 1960s. Economic growth improved in the 1950s after a decade of stagnation, but it was autarkic growth and the country accumulated serious...

Spain's economic expansion and social modernization ended abruptly in 2008 when the turbulence of the US economy spread to international financial markets. This chapter analyses the impact of the international crisis in Spain, where the problems were to be deeper and longer-lasting, given the...