150 years of financial regulation in Spain : what can we learn?

This paper explores the changes effected in the Spanish regulatory regimes over the last 150 years, and asks what have been the forces driving the regulatory reforms. A study of the Spanish experience reveals that there was relatively little statutory legislation until 1914 and for a long time there was no reaction to crises. In contrast, regulations have been altered on numerous occasions in the twentieth century. The paper also shows that the regulatory process has been the result of the interplay between economic as well as political economy forces. Moreover, and despite some idiosyncratic features, the Spanish regulatory history is similar to that of other European nations.

Stefano Battilossi y Youseef Cassis (eds.): European Banks and the American Challenge. Competition and Cooperation in International Banking under Bretton Woods, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002.

Oligopolio y tipos de interés en la Banca española, 1942–1975

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la posible utilizacion por parte de los bancos espanoles de acuerdos monopolistas destinados a fijar los tipos de interes en el periodo comprendido entre el final de la guerra civil espanola y 1975. El segundo aspecto que va a abordar este articulo es la busqueda de indicadores cuantitativos y cualitativos del grado de efectividad de dichos acuerdos colusivos. La principal conclusion que se obtiene es que a pesar de la existencia de un pacto entre las entidades bancarias para controlar los tipos de interes, respaldado por las propias autoridades franquistas, los prin-cipales bancos infringieron dichos acuerdos y compitieron via precio en el mercado de…