This paper deals with the role played by the Maritime Guilds in the development and management of the fisheries conducted from the Basque shore until the first half of the 20th century. It contends that thanks to a particular institutional framework Guilds were able to build up a management model based on the exclusive use of the fishing resources. The character of this regime of use stems from the behaviour of the fishing resources and from the characteristics of the fish markets in Spain before the 20th century, but it is also related to an historical model of organisation and relationship between society and nature. Finally, the social and economic consequences of the process of institutional change that eliminated the legal basis of the exclusiveness are analysed.

This paper studies the composition and administration of municipal finances in the Kingdom of Aragon during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Economic prosperity during the sixteenth century allowed town councils to carry out significant projects in order to transform the terms between man and landscape, to expand economic activities or to increase the public power. As a result of this administration, raising indebtedness during the seventeenth century caused the bankruptcy of town councils. Their financial difficulties were sharpened by the fiscal demands from the monarchy during the second quarter of this century and imposed to municipal authorities the increase of incomes. Final bankruptcy of town councils in Aragon will transfer the control of propios and communal lands to Juntas composed by creditors and an important representation of clergymen.

Through the case of one family from the regional nobility, this paper examines the adaptation of the old landowner elites to the new board carried by the Liberal Revolution. Despite the large struggle against the manorial power and other contingencies, the Magallón procured to repair their fortune on a new basis. With a double strategy such as lessors and husbandmen, their incomes rose during the second half of the XIX century. Indeed, they were very far from the arguable Spanish stereotype of the absent landowner.

The aim of this article is to analyse the influence that regional public intervention had in the economic growth and development of Navarre between the end of the XIXth century and 1970. By means of a «sui generis» fiscal federalism, Navarre's Treasury's provision of «merit goods» and infrastructure were above the average level of Spain. However, it was not until the 60s that these incentives, and a lower tax pressure, contributed to the industrialisation of the region. The Programme of Industrial Promotion of 1964 favoured business investments, which accelerated the transformation of this regional economy. Nevertheless, public intervention was preceded by the forces of the market, which inserted Navarre among one of the principal axis of the economic development of Spain at the end of the XXth century.

Spanish banking has been considered as an industry ruled by oligopolistic conducts. It has been even dealt as a cartel, which has been able to keep along xx century with the support of the State. This paper checks this interpretation with the aid of a set of indexes of the degree of competitori in a market: an annual series of economic concentration and another one of intra-industrial turnover, as well as some proxi figures of the height of the barriers to entry. Doubts about the thesis of the banking cartelization are yielded by our results. To be precise, the competitive nature of the Spanish banking industry is defended, at least for the time before the civil war, and it is questioned that big banks emerged unharmed from the statu quo declared by Franco's goverments.

El propóosito del libro de Carlos Barciela, Inmaculada López, Joaquín Melgarejo y José A. Miranda, al que dedicamos esta nota, es ofrecer una visión general de la historia económica del franquismo. Este empeño se enmarca en un proyecto editorial más amplio que incluye un volumen dedicado a la evolución política y social en el mismo período, firmado por E. Moradiellos, y otro, a la cultura y vida cotidiana, por J. Gracia García y M. A. Ruiz Carnicer. En el volumen consagrado a estudiar la economía española durante el franquismo se presenta un actualizado estado de la cuestión sobre el tema. Una revisión de este tipo resulta especialmente oportuna en un momento como el actual, en que la extensión de la bibliografía aparecida en los últimos años hace dificil para el estudioso del período abarcar todas las facetas relevantes y en que, además, las nuevas investigaciones estân poniendo en duda alguna de las más asentadas interpetaciones mantenidas hasta hoy.