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Fiscal Crisis and the Decline of Spain (Castile)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Dennis O. Flynn
Dennis O. Flynn
Affiliation:
Faculty of the Department of Economics, University of the Pacific, Stockton, California 95211.
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Abstract

Earl J. Hamilton's multiple theses on the price revolution, the decline of Spain, and the birth of capitalism have all placed American silver (and gold) at the forefront. This essay supports Hamilton's emphasis on the impact of New World treasure on the decline of Castile, but from a different angle. Mining profits rather than the quantity of imports supported the empire. When the profits dwindled, as was inevitable, international superiority was begrudgingly surrendered to the emerging powers of the north.

Type
Papers Presented at the Forty-First Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , March 1982 , pp. 139 - 147
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1982

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References

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2 An overlapping literature on sixteenth-century price inflation reveals the same dichotomy: Hamilton's monetary view versus the so-called real explanations of others. For elimination of the chronology-related criticism of Hamilton's thesis, see Flynn, Dennis O., “A New Perspective on the Spanish Price Revolution: The Monetary Approach to the Balance of Payments,” Erplorations in Economic History, 15 (10 1978), 388–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 This section focuses on mine profits. The same model is used to explain the cause of the Price Revolution in Flynn, Dennis O., “Sixteenth Century Inflation from a Production Point of View,” in Inflation through the Ages: Economic, Social, Psychological and Historical Aspects (Brooklyn, forthcoming).Google Scholar

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