This article examines the fiscal transformation of Spain's trade with Spanish America during the 17th century. It analyses the taxation of trade combined with the evolution of the Hispanic Monarchy's long-term domestic debt. To this end, the author looks at the almojarifazgo de Indias (main customs duty), its juro (annuity) obligations and the evolution of the transatlantic trade. He argues that the fall in customs revenue and the increasing non-payment of the juros issued against the almojarifazgo were neither a consequence of the alleged crisis of the Carrera de Indias nor of the higher incidence of fraud. The Crown was not interested in exerting greater fiscal pressure on the trade or fighting fraud at the customs houses of Seville and Cadiz as the increased tax revenue would have gone entirely to service the unpaid juros. Instead, the fiscal burden shifted towards extraordinary contributions that were free of juro obligations.

Modern financial crises are difficult to explain because they do not always involve bank runs, or the bank runs occur late. For this reason, the first year of the Great Depression, 1930, has remained a puzzle. Industrial production dropped by 20.8 percent despite no nationwide bank run. Using cross-sectional variation in external finance dependence, we demonstrate that banks’ decision to not use the discount window and instead cut back lending and invest in safe assets can account for the majority of this decline. In effect, the banks ran on themselves before the crisis became evident.

This article studies a previously unknown asset market in eighteenth-century Sweden. It emerged as a result of a partial default in 1719, when large amounts of recently released fiat coins were converted into government liabilities. These could only be redeemed as a customs duty on international trade, the licent. As merchants had to acquire such assets to conduct their trade, tens of thousands of transactions were carried out on a secondary market over a period of more than 45 years. Networks of local merchants bought assets from initial holders and sold them on to intermediaries or merchants, who deposited the liabilities with a newly established government agency, the Debt Office. Here, hundreds of account holders could transfer the value of their deposits between them. When a licent payment was due, the amount was deducted from the merchant's account. Prices on the liabilities were low and sometimes volatile, but the long-term trend was rising. We have distinguished three types of market participants: a small group of very active users, most of them professional dealers or brokers; merchants who traded on a regular basis as they needed to pay the licent, or when a favorable opportunity appeared; and finally, those who traded sporadically. The emergence of this market was part of a financial expansion that occurred in many European countries at the same time, the closest equivalent being the segmented default in France after the abolition of John Law's system. This study aims to broaden our understanding of eighteenth-century financial developments, which have rarely been studied in a semi-peripheral European economy.