The Spanish economists and the debate on economic planning (1931-1939)

The Great Depression in the 1930s gave way to a global debate about economic planning. The debate had a direct impact in different areas of the Spanish public sphere within which lobbies, interest groups, trade unions, associations of employers, political parties, but also professional economists gave their different views on the topic. This article analyses the different views of the Spanish economists on these experiments that they conveyed throughout a wide range of articles and monographs. Such an account will shed light on many issues like the prevalence of the theoretical analysis over ideological issues making the discourse of the economists clearly different and unique. It also shows the existence of a pluralistic view on the study of the economic organization that emerged from different theoretical frameworks and the gradual catching up of Spanish economics regarding more advanced countries.