In the seventeenth century, Amsterdam and London developed distinctive innovations in finance through both banks and markets that facilitated the growth of trade in each city. In the eighteenth century, a symbiotic relation developed that led to bank-oriented finance in Amsterdam cooperating...

In common with the other periphery countries that joined the euro-zone in 1998-2000, Spain enjoyed ten years of economic prosperity, essentially debt-financed. The financial crisis of 2008 has revealed deep structural problems in the euro-zone, but also among Spain’s fiscally autonomous...