This study presents the first results of an on-going study of longevity of large Spanish family firms. Its main objective is to provide solid data for a topic in which opinions are more abundant than scientific statistics, as well as to identify the keys to the survival and competitiveness of the almost 250 firms included in the study. It concludes that this reality is not just the result of two decades of integration in Europe or a fortunate endowment with some natural resources, but the outcome of a long learning process and the combination of two factors: specialization in market niches in which the state had no strategic interests and the creation of personal networks of cooperation and influence within and outside Spain.

This article examines some effects of the political and military alliance between Spain and the United States on the Spanish business community in the 1950s and 1960s. The technical aid is taken to be the set of official programs and private contracts and investments that helped disseminate in Spain the techniques and ideas associated with the American model. The articulation process of the economic interests of the United States in Spain is quantitatively and qualitatively analysed. Our research reveals that technical aid and the pro-American circles formed around it, which were partially based on existing business relations, were essential to such process. The Spanish case shows therefore, first, that US foreign economic policy favoured, even if only indirectly, American business during the Cold War. Second, this work provides material and ideas to analyse the Spanish «miracle» as a rather exogenous growth process.

This paper analizes the performance of interest groups in the Spanish alcohol market between 1887 and 1936. The research addresses the question of the impact of these agroindustrial interest groups in the making of —protective— economic policies during the Restauration. In order to answer this question, we have reconstructed their interaction with political and administrative agencies, on the basis of both the published documents of the groups and associations, and the records of the parliamentary committees. The main conclusions are: 1. Pressure groups remained very autonomous with regards to the extremely heterogeneous interests of the sector, 2. The Parliament proved unable to establish priorities among die conflicting interests; and 3. The lawmaking process ignored the main proposals and did not produce an alcohol policy.

This paper adresses some of the most important trends in economic and social German historiography in the last fifteen years. The study focuses on the period of industrialization and analyzes and elaborates on six theses which traditional interpretations have postulated to explain the singularity and success of German modernization: the fast industrialization process; the existence of a «labour surplus»; the decisive role played both by Zollverein and railways; the rise of «organized capitalism» and the favourable influence of burgeoisie and entrepreneurship. Two main ideas —economic backwardness and Sonderweg— which underlie most research are also analized.

The paper concludes that, although the six traditional dieses are shown to be controversial in most comparative, regional and econometric recent studies, German historian's work is still based on diem.