Economic thought, negotiations, and the 1959 spanish stabilization plan: the faculty of political and economic sciences as a catalyst for transformation

Purpose This paper aims to analyze the development of Spanish economic thought in the 1940s and 1950s, focusing on the foundation of the Faculty of Political and Economic Sciences in 1943. Using a Foucauldian approach, this study explores the power structures that fostered intellectual alignments with the Francoist Regime, while also identifying the academics who shaped Spain’s negotiations for entry into the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Organization for European Economic Cooperation. Design/methodology/approach The paper is structured around four themes: 1. The origins of the Faculty of Political and Economic Sciences and its first graduating class. 2. The economic orthodoxy of the 1940s as the foundation for intellectual change and the debates of the early 1950s. 3. The role of a politically influential sector, closely tied to the Catholic Church, that embraced liberal capitalism. 4. The externally driven push for economic liberalization, which led to internal conflict within the 1957 government, particularly involving Castiella and Ullastres. Findings This study has highlighted the crucial role of the first Faculty of Political Science and Economics in dismantling the autarkic framework of the Spanish Franco Regime. The economic orthodoxy of its curricula and the academic rigor of its faculty were decisive in producing specialists proficient in the mechanisms of Western capitalism, which dominated postwar Europe after 1945, a period characterized by reinforced international economic cooperation, particularly following the establishment of the IMF. The database used in this study has been drawn directly from the archives of the Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid. Originality/value The role of the first Faculty of Political Science and Economics in the Spanish 1959 stabilization program has never been studied using data from the files of the Faculty itself, which shows the importance of knowledge and university in the transformation of the Francoist regime during the 1940 and the1950s. This study shows that the impulse of the opening of Spanish economy came from the US but was facilitated by the embededness of a internationalist thought that came back to 1943, which was in alignment with the Catholic thought of the time. The different people involved in this transformation are stressed, in particular the role of Castiella, undervalued in the literature.