Numerous archival documents show how the suspension of payments by Philip II, in September 1575, on the contracts with Genoese bankers (asientos) induced a freeze of the domestic credit market in Castile through the bankers’ intermediation for asientos and the credit interconnections. Commercial fairs stopped, banks failed and trade suffered while the king granted legal protection to the Genoese bankers. The evidence strikingly confirms that by his strategy, Philip II was able to remove the de facto ceiling on the domestic debt (juros) imposed by the fixed revenue commitment of the Castilian cities in the Cortes. The agreement with the bankers was signed in December 1577 immediately after the cities had agreed to the doubling of their commitment.

This article attempts to quantify the decline of Spain over the period 1500–1850. In contrast to earlier estimates that focus almost exclusively on Castilian agriculture, we look at trends in urbanisation and construct new measures of agricultural and aggregate output at both regional and national levels. A distinctive long-run behaviour is found across Spanish regions that rejects the identification between Castile and Spain. Per capita income grew in the sixteenth and early nineteenth centuries, while contraction and stagnation occurred in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the long run, output per head did not improve until the early nineteenth century. At the time of its imperial expansion Spain was a relatively affluent nation and, by 1590, was only behind the Low Countries and Italy in terms of per capita income. Spain's decline has its roots in the seventeenth century while its backwardness deepened in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Silver coins were an excellent instrument of payment in the seventeenth century, but given its high weight and value, its use and transport involved high risks and costs. Is it possible to estimate those costs? So far, we know how much the Spanish Crown paid to its bankers for money transport, but how much did the bankers themselves pay? And how much did other economic agents pay? What was cheaper: the use of bills of exchange or that of coins? How did the export of precious metals work in Spain?

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of the control of the exchange rate vellón-silver over the prices in the Castile Crown's short-run credit. It compares the official price rates with the prices signed in the credit contracts of foreign financiers during the first half of the XVII century. The paper uses concepts from the price control theory and research done on black markets. There are many evidences that suggest that the official rates did not work to control the price of precious metals. In fact, the Crown had to pay the costly real price of the silver when it needed. Nevertheless, this policy served to change the behaviour of the financiers in the markets.

This paper studies the figure of «Factor General del rey» in the organization and work of the Royal Finances of Castilla between 1627 and 1644, under the reformist government of the Count-Duke of Olivares. During these years, the Factor General was Bartolomé Spinola, one of the most importante Genoese bankers of Phillip IV. This article analyses the strategy of Royal Finances in the financial market during the early seventeenth century, and the role played by the most important bankers. To begin with, I examine why the Royal Finances needed a Factor General. At this moment, the Crown was establishing a system where the policy was established by experts. The presence of financiers in the court of Madrid grew as much as to influence economic policy. Later afterwards, I explain who Bartolomé Spinola was and how he got to become the main important banker, and then the Factor General. Drawing upon the experience and understanding he gained from his activities in the financial markets as a private banker, he could influence the direction of the political economy of the Spanish Empire. Finally, I analyse briefly some of the functions of the Factor General in the financing of the Crown's expenses, and his intervention in the problems relative to the vellon coinage.

The quantification of the American remittances is tended to distinguish among wealth public and private. Fruit of this are some wrong results, above all in the XVII century. The present article study the precious metals import for the Royal Estate. It is intended to show that the remittances with which counted the Wreath were more important than what traditionally it has been considered. The cause of its infravaloration resides in a wrong analysis of the source of used official character. To know which was the volume of precious metals with which counted the Royal Estate is a resolutive topic to understand the evolution of the credit of the Wreath and the relationships that maintained with the foreign bankers.