This Selected Issues paper contains two studies examining key issues for fiscal management and long-term fiscal sustainability in Spain. The first study discusses how best to ensure fiscal discipline at lower levels of government by examining the institutional setting and mechanisms that make...

Spain’s 2007 Article IV Consultation underlies that immediate growth prospects are bright and the central scenario is for a smooth landing but with appreciable downside risks. The Spanish economy enjoyed another year of remarkable growth in 2006, further extending its prolonged expansion....

1 Introduction -- 2 Early Globalization: Arguments and Evidence -- 3 Harbingers of Modernity: an Iberian perspective -- 4 Silver production, prices and globalization in the eighteenth century -- 5 The Austrian mining industry and the Iberian globalization -- 6 The Manila Galleon and the Age of...