Growth and macroeconomic performance in Spain 1939-1993

A distinctive case of post-World war growth, Spain's experience over the last fifty years is examined in this paper. After presenting trends in aggregate performance within a comparative convergence framework, institutional and macroeconomic features are explored as its ultimate explanations. Main phases are distinguished that correspond to the autarchy period (1939-1959), the years of growth and delayed reconstruction (1959-1975), the relative stagnation of the transition from Franco's dictatorship to democracy (1975-1985) which ended with Spain's membership of the European Community and gave way to a short period of accelerating growth abruptly stopped by the early_ 1990's recession