Publications
The money market in transition: from city-based market arbitrage to a central banking system in nineteenth-century Spain.
Reference: Iglesias, E., & Maixé-Altés, J. C. (2025). The money market in transition: from city-based market arbitrage to a central banking system in nineteenth-century Spain. Financial History Review. doi: 10.1017/S0968565024000106
This research supports the singularity of the Spanish case. The lessons we can learn are a product of the short transition in the mid 1880s from a city-based monetary system (supported by private actors) to a central banking system in the absence of a developed banking system with a nationwide scope, unlike what occurred in the rest of Western Europe. Introducing market arbitrage, we provide novel evidence – using new data – of how price formation in city-based money markets was driven by more than one price. Furthermore, factors such as market conditions, political circumstances and the asymmetrical development of market potential in the Spanish economic geography also played an important role. We also show new empirical support that transaction cost reduction was not associated with improving efficiency during the 1875–85 period when city-based money markets were still operating. The inland payment system was struggling even before its takeover by the Bank of Spain.
From the telegraph to the app: The evolution and current status of remittance providers from the United States to Mexico, ca. 1980–2020
Contested Money Toward a New Social Contract
Reference: Massó-Lago, M. (2023). Contested Money: Toward a New Social Contract. Routledge. ISBN 9780367375522
Discussing money is always accompanied by controversy as well as enchantment. Debating what money is and how it performs its main functions in the contemporary economy is fundamental to understanding the social consequences of money transformation associated with the digital revolution. This book explores the links between the current and prospective properties of money, its production, and its relationship to the concepts of value, the common good, and innovation.
Contested Money opens a debate on the role that money could play in a different paradigm based on a renewed conception of monetary properties and functions that are capable of having a positive impact on social and individual welfare. Massó outlines the fundamentals of this monetary model, which would operate as a parallel currency, where the processes of monetary and value creation are connected in a new deal between the citizen and the state, grounded on an approach of reciprocal rights and responsibilities.
This book will appeal to scholars, students, and, more broadly, readers interested in a contemporary understanding of what money is, how it is being transformed, and the role that it can play in redefining the twenty-first-century social contract.
Toward a Cashless Society. Cash and Non-Cash Payments in Spain, 1989-2014
Reference: Maixé-Altés, J. C., & Mourelle, E. (2023). Toward a Cashless Society. Cash and Non-Cash Payments in Spain, 1989-2014. Panoeconomicus, 1–39. DOI: 10.2298/PAN180213004M
This work investigates the relationships between the retail payment system, monetary aggregates and economic activity in Spain from a long-run perspective. This approach is considered from the perspective of the transformations favored by ICT in the payment system, which incorporates increasingly more and more cashless instruments. The methodology used is based on cointegration analysis and error correction models. Likewise, a new indicator of some trends in the implementation of cashless transactions in payment systems is proposed; this measure has been applied to Spain and other European countries. With respect to long-run relationships, we demonstrate the relevant (and direct) impact of changes in the monetary system and national income on the value of cashless transactions. Regarding the short run, the most important relationships in terms of the value of cashless transactions are those related to the real estate sector. The empirical results evidence the intensive progress of the cashless society in Spain, where the banking sector, regulatory changes and ICT development have played a key role.
Technological and socio-institutional dimensions of cryptocurrencies. An incremental or disruptive innovation?
Reference: Matilde Massó, Anastasiya Shevchenko & Nazaret Abalde Bastero (2022) Technological and socio-institutional dimensions of cryptocurrencies. An incremental or disruptive innovation?, International Review of Sociology. DOI: 10.1080/03906701.2021.2015981
Despite the increase in literature on financial innovation as a force of change in the financial system, most contributions fail to analyze the relationship between the socio-institutional and technological design of cryptocurrencies. This paper aims to fill this gap by providing a case study of Bitcoin, the most representative of the virtual and cryptocurrencies. We begin by addressing the concept of financial innovation as a social phenomenon embedded in networks of users, technologists, regulations, institutions, culture and history. Secondly, we examine the disruptive and evolutionary nature of the Bitcoin, comparing it with the characteristics of legal tender money. The main conclusions indicate that although Bitcoin represents a disruptive technology in the process of monetary creation through a peer-to-peer network, it is not a new conception of money in its institutional dimension
Reliability and security at the dawn of electronic bank transfers in the 1970s-1980s.
Reference: J. Carles Maixé-Altés (2021). Reliability and security at the dawn of electronic bank transfers in the 1970s-1980s. Revista de Historia Industrial - Industrial History Review, vol. 30 (81), 151-187.
From a historical perspective, the concept of reliability and computing security in the early 1970s, when electronic data transfer processes were in infancy, is especially interesting in terms of their implications in technological change and the business of banking. The cases of Japan, Spain and Germany, in terms of their national banking networks, provide an interesting field of analysis in terms of the implications that the online data transfer systems had for banking institutions. Concerns about the reliability of the computing processes and digital security were the key factors. These innovations laid the foundation for the advancement of networks and new banking services that would open up unprecedented horizons in what was to become known as service banking.
Bank and trade credit after the financial crisis: evidence from rural Galicia.
Reference: David Peón & Xulia Guntín (2021). Bank credit and trade credit adter the financial crisis: evidence from rural Galicia. Journal of Business Economics and Management, 22 (3), 616-635. DOI: 10.3846/jbem.2021.14270
Access to external finance is a key challenge for the creation, survival and growth of SMEs. This article delves into the “weak funding” handicap of rural small firms (SEs): the access to bank financing and the substitutive role of trade credit for entrepreneurs in rural areas when they faced bank credit constraints. Considering SEs in Galicia (Spain), a paradigmatic case in Europe of rural areas in demographic decline with a strong impact of the Spanish sovereign and banking crisis of 2008–2012. There’s evidence of firms in rural areas facing a differential negative flow of bank credit during the financial crisis, especially in the manufacturing and construction sectors, that dissipated afterwards. Then, using a panel data approach that considers the determinants of trade credit, the complementary and substitutive hypotheses are tested to estimate the impact of bank credit restric-tions over trade credit.
Retail trade and payment innovations in the digital era
Reference: J. Carles Maixé-Altés (2020). Retail trade and payment innovations in the digital era: a cross-industry and multi-country approach. Business History, 62 (4), 588-612. DOI:10.1080/00076791.2018.1471062.
This article introduces a novel approach to payment innovations. It t identifies a cross-industry (retail trade and retail banking) and multi-country (USA, some Western European countries and Japan) approach to the interaction between these industries and the new retail payment systems from the 1970s to the mid 1990s. It documents and discusses the different trajectories that have been seen in the different competitive environments, particularly in regard to payment cards. It also analyses the involvement of bankers and retailers in the evolution of card payment systems and their contribution to the global adoption of bank cards. These processes have occurred within a framework in which sectoral boundaries have taken precedence over the payment alternatives associated with cross-industry solutions.
The problematic conceptualization of financiarization
Reference: Matilde Masso Lago, Nazaret Abalde Bastero and Mark Davis (2020). The problematic concep-tualization of financiali-sation: differentiating causes, consequences and socio economic actors’ financialised behaviour. Revista Internacional de Sociologia, 78 (4). DOI:10.3989/ris.2020.78.4.m20.001
Financing is a process of structural and incomplete change in contemporary economies. The growth of the financial system in recent decades has been accompanied by an increasingly complex relationship between socio-economic actors and financial markets. In this article we analyze the causes and consequences of financing with respect to: erosion of the capital-to-work relationship; increasing labour income inequality; and the commercialization of daily life and social rights. We review the main conceptualizations of financing at various research sites corresponding to the main economic actors, i.e. non-financial corporations; state and individuals; and its complex relationship with financial markets. Our main objective is to assess the contributions and limitations of funding studies in these research spaces.
Crowdfunding as democratic finance?
Reference: Davis M, Braunholtz-Speight T, Wardrop R. (2020) ‘Crowdfunding as Democratic Finance? Understanding How and Why UK Investors Trust these Markets’, Revista Internacional de Sociologia, 78 (4). DOI: 10.3989/ris.2020.78.4.m20.005
Can crowdfunding contribute to the rebalancing of the financial system by democratizing investment? This document begins to answer this question by establishing how and why investors trust these markets. We offer two contributions. First, to theoretical debates on democratic finance; and second, to a more empirical body of interdisciplinary research on popular investment through a qualitative analysis of 52 original interviews with investors in six UK crowdfunding markets. Our data is taken from a project with the UK Financial Conduct Authority to improve investor protection in these markets. Using an approach to economic sociology, we find that investors: mobilize integrated networks to establish confidence in crowdfunding; are motivated by expectations of "combined yields"; prefer automated investment tools if they lack experience; and typically invest with funds they have earmarked to lose. We conclude that greater investor protection is required for collective financing to help democratize finance.
Savings banks a pan-european network on digital innovation in historical perspective
Reference: J. Carles Maixé-Altés (2019). The digitalisation of banking: a new perspective from the European savings banks industry before the Internet, Enterprise and Society 20 (1), 159-198. DOI:10.1017/eso.2018.18.
This work is a contribution to the study of the adoption and use of computers in the savings bank industry in western Europe before the arrival of the Internet. It documents the presence of a pan-European network of IT users and analyzes the role of their industry associations in the processes of adopting and disseminating technology. It describes and analyzes their situation as late technology users, indicating certain specific and original patterns in the adoption of computers. Special attention is given to the implementation of shared computer centers throughout Europe and the results in the area of online accounting systems and teleprocessing systems as steps before the development of savings bank electronic funds transfer networks. It documents that in the savings banks industry, a reciprocal influence between technology and its uses was in play over long period of time and throughout the technological changes.
The importance of attitudes towards risk to explain indebtedness in southern European countries
Reference: Matilde Massó and Nazaret Abalde (2020). ‘The importance of attitudes towards risk to explain indebtedness in southern European countries’. Revista Española de Sociología 29 (1), 181-198.
The aim of the paper is to analyse the socio-demographic determinants and individuals’ attitudes towards risk to explain indebtedness in southern european countries. this analysis is done within the context of an increasing process of financialization of individual behaviour. we use the household finance and consumption survey (hfcs), drawn up by the ECB between 2009 and 2011. the methodological plan consists of a combination of a multiple correspondence analyses in order to identify the various household debt models and a logistic regression analysis in order to detect the explanatory variables that best explain the differences between indebtedness models. the main contribution of this paper is the identification of those variables that explain the economic differences in household debt levels. results are showing a relevant influence of individual attitudes to explain indebtedness in southern countries in detriment of sociodemographic variables which are not relevant explanatory factors.
What is new in “a new history of management”?
Reference: Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo (2019). What is new in "a new history management"? Journal of Management History, 25 (4), 116-124. DOI: 10.1108/JMH-07-2018-0033
This paper evaluates the contributions of the so-called “Historic Turn” in Organization Studies through the attempt by Cummings et al. (2016) to offer a new and alternative approach to teaching and researching the history of management ideas. A New History of Management is intended to be a provocation rather than a practical plan, and by their own admission Cummings et al. (2016) prefer controversy to detailed analysis.
Behavioral biases in credit markets
Reference: David Peón (2019). Sesgos de comportamiento en los mercados de crédito. Papeles de Economía Española, 162, «la gestión de la información en banca: de las finanzas del comportamiento a la inteligencia artificial», pp. 48-63. ISSN: 0210-9107
The behavioral finance offers an intuitive interpretation of bank credit cycles. After summarising the main behavioral biases, and the anomalies they lead to in financial markets, we delve into the effect they have on information analysis by banks. We review several models based on biased competition by some of the banks that offer credit. The behavioral interpretation implies relevant regulatory issues: an exquisitely functioning banking industry would still be exposed to the behavioral biases of some market participants.
Money, debt and the financializaed futures of young temporary workers
Reference: M. Davis, and L. Cartwright (2019) ‘Deferred Lives’: Money, Debt, and the Financialized Futures of Young Temporary Workers. In: Featherstone, M, (ed.) The Sociology of Debt. Policy Press , p. 91. ISBN 978-1447339526
Over the course of the last ten years the issue of debt has become a serious problem that threatens to destroy the global socio-economic system and ruin the everyday lives of millions of people. This collection brings together a range of perspectives of key thinkers on debt to provide a sociological analysis focused upon the social, political, economic, and cultural meanings of indebtedness. The contributors to the book consider both the lived experience of debt and the more abstract processes of financialisation taking place globally. Showing how debt functions on the level of both macro- and microeconomics, the book also provides a more holistic perspective, with accounts that span sociological, cultural, and economic forms of analysis.
Assessing Renewable Energy Sources for Electricity
Reference: Paulino Martinez-Fernandez, Fernando de Llano-Paz, Anxo R Calvo-Silvosa, & I Soares (2019). Assessing Renewable Energy Sources for Electricity (RES-E) Potential using a CAPM-Analogous Multi-Stage Model. Energies, 12, 3599.
Carbon mitigation is a major aim of the power-generation regulation. Renewable energy sources for electricity are essential to design a future low-carbon mix. In this work, financial Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) is implemented to optimize the power-generation technologies portfolio. We include technological and environmental restrictions in the model. The optimization is carried out in two stages. Firstly, we minimize the cost and risk of the generation portfolio, and afterwards, we minimize its emission factor and risk. By combining these two results, we are able to draw an area which can be considered analogous to the Capital Market Line (CML) used by the Capital Asset Pricing model (CAPM). This area delimits the set of long-term power-generation portfolios that can be selected to achieve a progressive decarbonisation of the mix. This work confirms the relevant role of small hydro, offshore wind, and large hydro as preferential technologies in efficient portfolios. It is necessary to include all available renewable technologies in order to reduce the cost and the risk of the portfolio, benefiting from the diversification effect. Additionally, carbon capture and storage technologies must be available and deployed if fossil fuel technologies remain in the portfolio in a low-carbon approach.
An energy and environmental policy efficiency approach of the EU member states
Reference: Paulino Martinez-Fernandez, Fernando De Llano-Paz, Anxo Calvo-Silvosa, & Isabel Soares (2020). An evaluation of the energy and environmental policy efficiency of the EU member states in a 25-year period from a modern portfolio theory perspective. International Journal of Sustainable Energy Planning and Management, 26, 19-32.
The European Union has been developing its energy and environmental policy for the last 30 years. Recent communications issued by the European Commission confirm the leadership of the European Union on reducing pollutant gas emissions and technological change towards a climate neutral economy. This work assesses the efficiency of European energy policy under a Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) approach. This proposal analyses the disaggregated European power portfolio: to make a more exhaustive analysis, focusing individually on each European country along the period 1990-2015. The efficiency of the energy and environmental policy of each Member State is measured by their distance to the power generation efficient frontier. The quadratic optimization model used by MPT is complemented by a cluster analysis in order to identify different groups of EU member states according to their behaviour patterns regarding the application of their energy and environmental policies without overlooking the efficiency of that implementation.