Germán Bernácer’s Analysis of the Great Depression: Theory and Practice, 1932–36

Abstract

The self-made Spanish economist Germán Bernácer (1833–1865) drew up a coherent theory of economic fluctuations—the theory of disposable funds—during the 1920s that has recently drawn the attention of historians of economic thought who appreciate its original approach and have weighted his possible influence on the Cambridge economists. This article analyses how Bernácer updated the model to the new formal rhetoric of the 1930s in light of the publication of Keynes’s A Treatise on Money. On the other hand, the article also analyzes how Bernácer, as a member of the Research Department of the Bank of Spain, applied the theory of disposable funds to interpret a wide range of economic, monetary, and financial events in a series of reports that he drafted for advising the board of the bank during the period 1932–36, in the midst of the Great Depression.