The financial disturbances that originated in the US in the second half of 2007 are the latest in a series of episodes in various regions of the world in recent years. However, financial crises are not unique to current financial systems, history being full of banking and exchange rate crises....

In the last eight centuries there have been hundreds of banking crises throughout the entire planet. Spain has not been an exception and our history is plagued with numerous financial disasters in which the collapse of one institution has jeopardized the stability of the whole financial...

This paper offers the history of the Banco Español de Puerto Rico from its creation in 1888 to its liquidation in 1913. The Banco Español was the sole note-issuing institution of the island until 1898, when Puerto Rico was transferred to the United States. The establishment of the Bank was...

TThis paper explains the process by which the Bank of Spain became a national bank, first by obtaining the monopoly of issue in 1874 and then by extending its sphere of financial action by creating the country's only network of bank branches before 1900. The implementation of a "unified or...