Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-12T13:06:14.919Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

American Military Interests and Economic Confidence in Spain under the Franco Dictatorship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 September 2007

Oscar Calvo-Gonzalez
Affiliation:
Principal Economist, European Central Bank, Kaiserstrasse 29, Frankfurt am Main 60311, Germany. E-mail: o.calvo-gonzalez-alumni@lse.ac.uk.

Abstract

The security of property rights is fragile under dictatorships. This is particularly so if economic agents are uncertain as to whether the regime will last. As a result, private investment is withheld and economic performance is poor. Spain was in such a situation after World War II. However, as the Cold War intensified the United States became interested in Spain as a military ally, thereby helping to consolidate Franco's regime. This led to an increase in economic confidence and helps to explain why economic growth resumed in Spain ahead of significant changes in its autarkic economic policies.

Type
ARTICLES
Copyright
© 2007 The Economic History Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acemoglu Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson. “Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth.” In Handbook of Economic Growth, edited by Philippe Aghion and Steven N. Durlauf, 385471. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2005.
Aixalá José. La peseta y los precios. Zaragoza: Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza, 1999.
Archivo del Ministerio español de Asuntos Exteriores [Archive of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs]. Serie Renovada.
Banco de España. Informe sobre la evolución de la economía española en 1958. Madrid: 1959.
Banco Urquijo. La economía española, 1952–53. Madrid: Servicio de Estudios del Banco Urquijo, 1954.
Bank of England Archive. File OV61/5.
Bollerslev Tim, Ray Y. Chou, and Kenneth F. Kroner, “ARCH Modeling in Finance: A Review of the Theory and Empirical Evidence.Journal of Econometrics 52, no. 1 (1992): 5–59.Google Scholar
Bolsa de Madrid. Índices de cotización de acciones de la Bolsa de Madrid, 1941–1987. Madrid: Bolsa de Valores de Madrid, Servicio de Estudios, 1988.
Calvo González Oscar. “¡Bienvenido, Míster Marshall! La ayuda económica americana y la economía española en la década de 1950.Revista de Historia Económica 19 (2001): 253–75.Google Scholar
Campbell Cynthia J., and Charles E. Wasley. “Measuring Security Price Performance Using Daily NASDAQ Returns.Journal of Financial Economics 33, no. 1 (1993): 73–92.Google Scholar
Campbell John Y., Andrew W. Lo, and A. Craig MacKinlay. The Econometrics of Financial Markets. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.
Carreras Albert, and Xavier Tafunell (coord.). Estadísticas Históricas de España, siglos XIX y XX. Fundación BBVA, 2006.
Clinton Pelham G. Economic and Commercial Conditions in Spain, May 1951. London: HMSO Overseas Economic Surveys, 1952.
Corrado Charles J.A Nonparametric Test for Abnormal Security Price Performance in Event Studies.Journal of Financial Economics 23 (1989): 385–95.Google Scholar
Cowan Arnold R.Nonparametric Event Study Tests,Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting 2 (1992): 353–71.Google Scholar
Department of State. Foreign Relations of the United States. Washington, DC: GPO, several years.
Durá Juan. U.S. Policy Toward Dictatorship and Democracy in Spain, 1931–1953: A Test Case in Policy Formation. Sevilla: Arrayán, 1985.
Economía. Madrid.
Economist, The. London.
Engle Robert. “GARCH 101: The Use of ARCH/GARCH Models in Applied Econometrics.Journal of Economic Perspectives 15, no. 4 (2001): 157–68.Google Scholar
Fernsworth Lawrence. “Spain in Western Defense.Foreign Affairs, July (1953): 648–62.Google Scholar
Frey Bruno S. and Marcel Kucher. “History as Reflected in Capital Markets: The Case of World War II.” This Journal 60, no. 2 (2000): 468–96.Google Scholar
Fusi Juan Pablo. Franco: Autoritarismo y poder personal. Madrid: Taurus, 1995 [1985].
Gómez-Mendoza Antonio, and Elena San Román. “Competition Between Private and Public Enterprise in Spain, 1939–1959: an Alternative View.Business and Economic History 26, no. 2 (1997): 696708.Google Scholar
González, Manuel-Jesús. “La autarquía económica bajo el régimen del General Franco: una visión desde la teoría de los derechos de propiedad.” Información Comercial Española, nos. 676–77 (1989/1990): 19–31.
Greif Avner. “Commitment, Coercion, and Markets: The Nature and Dynamics of Institutions Supporting Exchange.” In Handbook of New Institutional Economics, edited by C. Ménard and M. M. Shirley, 727–86. Dordrecht: Springer, 2005.
Guirao Fernando. Spain and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1945–57. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.
Keefer Philip. “A Review of the Political Economy of Governance: From Property Rights to Voice.” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper no. 3315, May 2004.
Liedtke Boris N. “International Relations Between the U.S. and Spain: economics, Ideology and Compromise.” London School of Economics: Ph.D. dissertation, 1996.
Liedtke Boris N. Embracing A Dictatorship. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.
MacKinlay A. Craig. “Event Studies in Economics and Finance.Journal of Economic Literature 35 (1997): 13–39.Google Scholar
Maddison Angus. The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective. Paris: OECD, 2001.
Martínez Elena. “Sector exterior y crecimiento en la España autárquica.Revista de Historia Económica 19 (2001): 240–45.Google Scholar
Martínez Elena. “El sector exterior durante la autarquía: Una reconstrucción de las balanzas de pagos de España (1940–1958).” Banco de España, Estudios de Historia Económica no. 23, 2003.
Merrill Dennis, ed. Documentary History of the Truman Presidency, vol. 25. Bethesda, MD: University Publications of America, 1995.
Mitchell Brian R. International Historical Statistics: Europe, 1750–1988. New York: Stockton Press, 1992.
Mitchener Kris and Marc Weidenmier. “Empire, Public Goods, and the Roosevelt Corollary.” This Journal 65, no. 3 (2005): 658–92.Google Scholar
National Archives at College Park, Maryland.
Neal Larry. “A Shocking View of Economic History.” This Journal 60, no. 2 (2000): 317–34.Google Scholar
New York Times, The, several issues.
North Douglass C. and Barry Weingast. “Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England,” This Journal 49, no. 4 (1989): 803–32.Google Scholar
Olson Mancur. Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships. New York: Basic Books, 2000.
Pick Franz. Black Market Yearbook [renamed Pick's Currency Yearbook from 1963 onwards]. New York: Pick's Publishing Corporation, several years.
Pindyck Robert S.Irreversibility, Uncertainty, and Investment.Journal of Economic Literature 26, no. 3 (1991): 1110–48.Google Scholar
Pires Jiménez Luis E. Regulación industrial y atraso económico en la dictadura de Franco. Madrid: Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, 2003.
Prados de la Escosura Leandro. El progreso económico de España (1850–2000). Madrid: Fundación BBVA, 2003.
Preston Paul. Franco: A Biography. New York: Basic Books, 1994.
San Román Elena. Ejército e Industria: el nacimiento del INI. Barcelona: Crítica, 1999.
Sussman Nathan and Yishay Yafeh. “Institutions, Reforms, and Country Risk: Lessons from Japanese Government Debt in the Meiji Era.” This Journal 60, no. 2 (2000): 442–67.Google Scholar
Sussman Nathan and Yishay Yafeh. “Institutional Reforms, Financial Development, and Sovereign Debt: Britain, 1690–1790.” This Journal 66, no. 4 (2006): 906–35.Google Scholar
Tafunell Xavier. “Los beneficios empresariales en España, 1880–1981. Estimación de un índice anual del excedente de la gran empresa.Revista de Historia Económica 16 (1998): 707–46.Google Scholar
Viñas Angel. Los pactos secretos de Franco con Estados Unidos: Bases, ayuda económica, recortes de soberanía. Barcelona: Grijalbo, 1981.
Whitaker Arthur P. Spain and the Defense of the West: Ally and Liability. New York: Harper for the Council on Foreign Relations, 1961.
Willard Kristen L., Timothy W. Guinnane, and Harvey S. Rosen. “Turning Points in the Civil War: View from the Greenback Market.American Economic Review 86, no. 4 (1996): 1001–18.Google Scholar
Woods Randall B. Fulbright: A Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
World Today. December 1953.