Inter-firm relationships and interlocking directorates in twentieth century Spanish banking

Abstract

Spanish banking historiography asserts that the largest banks performed over the twentieth century as though they constituted a monopoly. One of its main coordination schemes would have been a network of interlocking bank directors that would include most of the financial firms. Evidence available for the 1920s and 1960s seems to confirm the veracity of this hypothesis. In this paper, more systematic evidence has been collected to cover the whole twentieth century. The aim is to check whether these networks have persisted over the entire alleged period or they are by-products of particular events. Our results show that no general network remained for more than a decade. Therefore, it should be dismissed that interlocking directorates worked as coordination device of the so-called banking cartel. A summary review of the literature about the history of Spanish banks reveals that other possibilities are feasible.