Regulating Spanish Banking, 1939-1975 (Studies in Banking History)

The main purpose of this study is to examine the impact of financial regulation on the Spanish banking system performance from the end of the Civil War (April 1939) to the mid-1970s. The changes in the banking regulatory framework - the pre-war situation, the period of strongest financial restriction in Spain between 1939-1962, and the reform efforts between 1962 and 1975 - offer an instructive case study. The first part of the book discusses the reasons for regulation: why the Franco government maintained a very restrictive banking regulatory framework. It provides a general view of the Spanish economy from the end of the Civil War to the 1970s, and analyzes the main political and economic choices made by the Franco regime and the consequences of their decisions. The next part of the book assesses the results of intervention, by looking at how factors external to the banking system influenced its behaviour. The final part of the study examines the idea that regulation affects firms not through profitability but through risk, and develops an explanation of how regulation affected financial markets.