El día 4 de julio de 1997 falleció en Madrid el decano de los economistas liberales españoles, el profesor Lucas Beltrán. Tenía ochenta y seis años, pero hasta hace no mucho tiempo había conservado una envidiable lucidez mental y una notable capacidad de trabajo, ya que aún el año anterior, con su salud bastante deteriorada, había colaborado en la preparación de la última de sus obras, Ensayos de economía política, cuya lectura es, seguramente, la mejor vía para acercarse a su pensamiento.

Había nacido el año 1911 en Alcanar, en la provincia de Tarragona. Tras estudiar Derecho en la Universidad de Barcelona se trasladó a Inglaterra, donde cursó estudios de economía en la London School of Economics. Allí conoció y tuvo como maestros a economistas de la talla de Robbins o Hayek, a los que le uniría posteriormente una gran amistad. Después de la guerra civil desarrolló una larga carrera como catedrático en diversas universidades españolas, que fue acompañada de una amplia obra científica.

The first long period of economic development of the Hieronymite Monastery of Guadalupe, probably the wealthiest in Spain during the early Modern Age, is analysed in this paper. The economic success of this monastic house was primarily based on the brilliant exploitation its rectors implemented of the Marian sanctuary of the Villuercas. The Hieronymite leaders achieved an increasing prestige and fame for the former through an efficient publicity system its main aim being the maximum diffusion of Our Lady's «miracles» by thousands of pilgrims who were attracted to Guadalupe by means of various incentives. At the same time, the economic directors of the «House» managed to widen and strengthen an efficient thick network of collectors throughout the Crown of Castile which annually collected a huge sum of money. In summary, the Monastery of Guadalupe was for over one and a half centuries a thriving «enterprise» of spiritual services.

The quantification of the American remittances is tended to distinguish among wealth public and private. Fruit of this are some wrong results, above all in the XVII century. The present article study the precious metals import for the Royal Estate. It is intended to show that the remittances with which counted the Wreath were more important than what traditionally it has been considered. The cause of its infravaloration resides in a wrong analysis of the source of used official character. To know which was the volume of precious metals with which counted the Royal Estate is a resolutive topic to understand the evolution of the credit of the Wreath and the relationships that maintained with the foreign bankers.

The paper is divided in three parts. Firstly I explain why the big steel and iron European firms decided to concentrate vertically a part of die Vase mining sector with their plants. Then I analyse the four mining firms which were integrated in the continental iron and steel industry (Bilbao Iron Ore, Luchana Mining, Orconera and Franco Belga). Finally I defend die idea that die existence of these and other vertical concentrations in the Spanish mining sector force us to reconsider some of die topics in die controversy between pessimists and optimists (foreign firms benefits, trade balance and terms of trade).

This article deals with two important matters of the making of fiscal policy during the Spanish Restoration: the central position of the Parliament in the making of fiscal policy, and the relations between the parliamentary parties and the pressure groups. In the year 1916, the Spanish Chancellor of the Exchequer, the liberal Santiago Alba, tried to incorporate the War Profits Tax to the Spanish tax system, adopted by the majority of the countries at the First World War and by some neutral countries. The bill failed in the Parliament because of the obstruction of a large group of MPs leaded by the Lliga Regionalista, a Catalonian nationalist party.

It is said by some historians that the failure of Alba's bill was due to the strength and the efficiency of the pressure groups and by the subordination, of the parliamentary parties of their interests. This article disagrees with this thesis. It tries to prove that the attitude of the Lliga Regionalista was instigated by strictly political reasons. Its objetive was to weaken the political system of Spanish Restoration. The Lliga considered that this political system was an obstacle for the development of the Catalonian home rule. In its struggle against Santiago Alba, the Lliga was supported by several MPs. They fought the bill in defence of the predominant economic interests in their electoral districts, withouth the support of their parties.

This essay analyzes the influence of Necker's ideas as contained in Informe de Ley Agraria of Jovellanos. We have demonstrated that the methodology and economic thought of Necker play an important role in this work. This proves that this author has had a stronger influence in Spain than has been previously admitted and leads us to reflect on the presence of his relativist and interventionist thought in this fundamental text of Spanish enlightenment liberalism.