In the second half of the 20th century, Spain provides a case of political regime change, which according to some political economy models should also lead to a shift in the cyclical nature of fiscal policy. We find that in most of the pre-democratic era, there was a strong procyclical bias to...

In the first age of rapid economic growth after 1945, fluctuations of western European output and employment were so mild that the very notion of a cycle was transformed or even seemed obsolete. A second period of much slower average economic growth was marked by large and frequent oscillations,...

Spanish long-run fiscal sustainability is analysed by using the multicointegration methodology. It permits the estimation of dynamic equilibrium relationships between flow and stock variables, and is here adjusted to fit the recurrent use of monetization. The results reveal that seigniorage was...

The concept of multicointegration allows to test the sustainability of public finances by assessing dynamic equilibrium relationships between flow and stock variables. This paper focus on the very long-run Spanish case, characterized by the more or less intensive use of monetization to offset...

Despite the theoretical agreement on the inflationary effects of persistent deficits empirical work did not provide supporting evidence until the inclusion of non-developed countries in panel studies. This paper proposes an alternative approach, by exploiting the changes in development in a...

According to the literature, the predominance of budget deficits conditioned money growth in Spain while the peseta was its currency. The idea of a long-running fiscal interference in monetary dynamics is partly backed by the contribution of the public component to monetary base growth in...

In a bank-oriented country such as Italy, bank credit is by far the most important source of external finance for firms. The allocative efficiency of banks is therefore an important element underlying the overall performance of the economy. In this paper we focus on allocation across industrial...

What determined the multinational expansion of European banks in the pre-1914 era of globalization? And how were banks’ foreign investments related to other facets of the globalizing world economy such as trade and capital flows? The paper reviews both the contemporary and historical...