This paper provides a new index of money market and bank lending interest rates in Spain for 1900–1935. New archival evidence reveals a structural change in market interest rates vis-à-vis the official rates charged by the Banco de España (BdE). Before 1914, the BdE rate operated as a ceiling to market rates. The outbreak of the First World War caused market rates to soar and the BdE rate started operating as a floor, as bank liquidity started depending on the BdE. This was accompanied by new banking legislation introduced in 1921, which changed the collateral framework through which the BdE lent to banks. The resulting interest rate index illustrates the persistent impact of financial deglobalisation caused by the outbreak of the War.

This paper focusses on the financial relations between the banking sector and the Treasury in Modern Spain. Tax systems have been insufficient, generating a chronic budget deficit. This drove to irresponsible public debt management, being the State a serial defaulter until 1987. This prevented the budget deficits could be financed by sovereign debt issued on the stock exchanges, and forced the state to resort to banks (public and private). The new series of public debt banks portfolios evolution is explained by their pursuit of returns and by changes in banking regulation and financial repression, which favoured the banking status quo. The paper analyses the causes of banking regulation, derived from the public borrowing policy and also from the banking lobbying strategy. It examines the consequences of the deadly banking-state embrace which brought about the interconnection between fiscal and banking crises.

The 1976/1977 crisis was the most severe in Spanish history, but the losses associated with the 2008 crisis are huge. This paper compares these two great banking crises and identifies the main parallels and differences between them. Is the current crisis as severe as that of 1976? What is the impact on the banking and financial sectors? We show that the 1976 crisis is being surpassed by the 2008 crisis in terms of the decline in GDP, industrial production and unemployment, and that these two events have had at least a similar impact in terms of output gap and output loss. Finally, the financial impact measured by different financial indicators confirms the greater severity of the 2008 crisis.

This article explores the international expansion of Mexican banks and its implications for the domestic banking system during the decade leading up to the 1982 debt crisis. In contrast to the prevalent focus in the literature on profitability and performance, I examine the asset and liability structure of the banking sector and show that there were clear signs of deterioration in its financial condition well before the onset of the crisis. Financial statement analysis reveals that the banks engaged in international lending and foreign funding were the ones with the greatest propensity to be adversely affected by this problem. The international expansion of Mexican banks emerged and developed as an exit option to domestic funding problems and increasing competition from foreign bank loans, in a context of growing needs for financing and foreign exchange in Mexico.

This paper presents the course taken by the Cuban economy from the early twentieth century until the outbreak of the Revolution, seen from the perspective of what happened in the stock market. I have therefore prepared an index of Havana Stock Exchange listings which shows strong dependence on what happened in the sugar market, particularly in sugar exports. However, my research highlights the weakness of this institution, conceived more as an instrument of speculative enrichment rather than one of financing, the evolution of which reveals the fragility of the Cuban economy and particularly the poor development of its capital markets.

Financial crises are not unique to current financial systems. Are crises alike? Have they become more frequent, longer lasting and more severe since the 20th century? What does history tell us? The objective of this paper is to study the financial crises that have occurred in Spain over the last 150 years. We consider different types of crises (banking, currency and stock market crises), together with all their possible combinations, estimate their frequency by period and measure their length and depth. The main conclusion we obtain is that Spanish crises have been more frequent than in the rest of the world and have been more severe and more complex since 1973, as the 2007 crisis is confirming.

This article explores the behavior of exchange rates in Spain during the 18th century. We analyze the exchange rates quoted in London on three Spanish cities between 1699 and 1826. After a brief review of how the Spanish monetary system worked and how exchange rates were determined, we assess to which extent the exchange rate responded to market fundamentals by testing two theoretical models of exchange rate determination. The results suggest that purchasing power parity held during the 18th century, with the exchange rate tracking quite closely the behavior of inflation differentials. Deviations from PPP appeared at the end of the century, due mostly to changes in the real exchange rate caused by the bilateral trade between Spain and Great Britain and, maybe, due to productivity differentials.

This article attempts to analyse the role that the Rothschild House played in the evolution of Spanish Public Finances along the 19th Century. Therefore, it endeavours to describe an elementary chronology of the relationships between the Spanish Government and the Rothschild House during the whole Century, analysing the main financial operations they underwrote, quantifying their annual aggregate figures and, finally, trying to comment upon the different consequences of the process above mentioned. To cover these aims, we have deployed original records from the Rothschild Archives in London and Paris, their contents having been supplemented with information from National Public Records in Spain and France, and other financial institutions, namely the Bank of Spain.