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Crisis in the Eurozone Periphery pp 51–72Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The Spanish Economic ‘Miracle’ That Never Was

Part of the Building a Sustainable Political Economy: SPERI Research & Policy book series (SPERIRP)

Abstract

The expansive phase experienced by the Spanish economy had long been praised, described in the early 2000s as an ‘economic miracle’. However, the crisis that struck in the late 2000s would become the deepest that the country had endured since at least the 1970s, leading to the general conclusion that its prior success had been a mirage rather than miracle. Using a political economy approach, this chapter identifies and analyses the factors that allow us to understand the Spanish model, including the role played by Spain in the European division of labour; the institutional framework of the domestic economy; and the key agents that have been central to the configuration of the whole model. Finally, it considers the distributive effects and consequences of the model.

Keywords

  • Political economy
  • Spanish growth model
  • Distributive struggle
  • 2008 crisis

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Fig. 3.1
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Fig. 3.5

Notes

  1. 1.

    Muñoz de Bustillo (2014) provides an excellent analysis of the theory and evidence of the so-called myth of expansionary austerity.

  2. 2.

    Liberal economists and those linked to the parties in government tended to base this statement on the high rates of economic growth in the context of the ‘Great Moderation’ (see, e.g., Bernaldo and Martínez 2005). Moreover, within the European Commission Spain was presented in the mid-2000s as a model to follow (see the newspaper article ‘El milagro económico español’, El país, 22 March 2007).

  3. 3.

    Only during the first years of democracy in Spain can we find another governing party, UCD, Unión de Centro Democrático, but since 1982, PSOE’s governments have alternated with PP governments, sometimes with the support of other regional parties, namely from Catalonia and the Basque Country.

  4. 4.

    There are many examples, but the most widely known are those related to the airports in Ciudad Real and Castellón, as well as the amusement park ‘Terra Mítica’ in Alicante.

  5. 5.

    These firms are ACS, Acciona, Ferrovial, Fomento de Construcciones, OHL and Sacyr Vallehermoso. It is worth noting that, on the shoulders of the state, these same companies have become international champions in infrastructure building (Government of Spain 2014).

  6. 6.

    Data extracted from UNCTADstat (http://unctadstat.unctad.org/EN/) in 2013.

  7. 7.

    As an example of the ideological convergence of the PP and the PSOE concerning the public sector, it is worth mentioning that José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, ‘the would-be premier of the social democratic government in the period 2004–2011, [declared] “I think that the idea of lowering taxes is leftist”’ (quoted in Muñoz de Bustillo and Antón 2014 from El País, 1 September 2000).

  8. 8.

    World Wealth & Income Database, wid.world, 1981–2012.

  9. 9.

    This assessment is in contrast with reporting in financial newspapers: see, for instance, Financial Times, 6 April 2017, ‘Spain: Boom to bust and back again’.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics and Statistics, University of León, León, Spain

    Luis Buendía

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Politics and SPERI, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom

    Dr. Owen Parker

  2. Department of International Relations, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey

    Dimitris Tsarouhas

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Buendía, L. (2018). The Spanish Economic ‘Miracle’ That Never Was. In: Parker, O., Tsarouhas, D. (eds) Crisis in the Eurozone Periphery. Building a Sustainable Political Economy: SPERI Research & Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69721-5_3

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