IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/6611.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Sustainable Debts of Philip II: A Reconstruction of Spain's Fiscal Position, 1560-1598

Author

Listed:
  • Voth, Hans-Joachim
  • Drelichman, Mauricio

Abstract

The defaults of Philip II have attained mythical status as the origin of sovereign debt crises. The king failed to honour his debts four times during his reign. In this paper, we reassess the fiscal position of Habsburg Spain. New archival evidence allows us to derive comprehensive estimates of debt and revenue. These show that primary surpluses were sufficient to make the king's debt sustainable for most of his reign. Spain's debt burden was manageable up to the 1580s, and its fiscal position only deteriorated for good after the defeat of the "Invincible Armada". We also estimate fiscal policy reaction functions, and show that Spain under the Habsburgs was at least as "responsible" as the US in the 20th century or as Britain in the 18th century. Our results suggest that the outcome of uncertain events such as wars may have more influence on a history of default than strict adherence to fiscal rules.

Suggested Citation

  • Voth, Hans-Joachim & Drelichman, Mauricio, 2007. "The Sustainable Debts of Philip II: A Reconstruction of Spain's Fiscal Position, 1560-1598," CEPR Discussion Papers 6611, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6611
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP6611
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mauricio Drelichman & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2008. "Debt Sustainability in Historical Perspective: The Role of Fiscal Repression," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(2-3), pages 657-667, 04-05.
    2. Drelichman, Mauricio, 2009. "License to till: The privileges of the Spanish Mesta as a case of second-best institutions," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 220-240, April.
    3. K. Kývanç Karaman & Þevket Pamuk, 2009. "Ottoman State Finances in Comparative European Perspective, 1500-1914," Working Papers 2009/05, Bogazici University, Department of Economics.
    4. Pablo Martín-Aceña & Pilar Nogues-Marco, 2012. "Crisis bancarias en la historia de España. Del Antiguo Régimen a los orígenes del capitalismo moderno," Documentos de Trabajo (DT-AEHE) 1201, Asociación Española de Historia Económica.
    5. Álvarez Nogal, Carlos & Chamley, Christophe, 2011. "Debt policy under constraints between Philip II, the Cortes and Genoese bankers," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH wp11-06, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Early modern history; Fiscal stability; Natural resources; Sovereign debt; Spain; Sustainability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • H62 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Deficit; Surplus
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt
    • N24 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Europe: 1913-
    • N44 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: 1913-

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6611. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.