Biography
Maria Angeles Pons Brias is lecturer in Economic History in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Valencis. She is the author of several articles on the Spanish banking system, including ’Capture or agreement? Why Spanish banking was regulated under the Franco regime (1939-1975)’, Financial History Review 6 (1999); and in P. MartÃn Aceña and M. Titos MartÃnez (eds), El sistema financiero en España. Una sÃntesis histórica. Her current research interests lie in the fields of the analysis of collusion and restrictive practices in the Spanish banking system under the Franco regime and the ’universal’ character of the Spanish banking sector.
'This work is definitively a qualitative leap in Spanish banking literature, since it provides a theoretical bench-mark that affords a revision of some of the little-known topics regarding the banking regulations of Franco's regime, particularly their reasons and their effects. Not only because of its theoretical proposal, but also due to its use of indicators that demonstrate that the regulation was neither uniform, nor had any similar effects on the banking industry, this book is a valuable reference for understanding the economic policy of the regime as well as the evolution of the Spanish banking industry.' Business History






