Debt Policy in Spanish America during the Seventeenth Century

We use microdata to reconstruct comprehensive fiscal accounts for Spanish America during the seventeenth century. Our new time series evidence shows that the Spanish Empire maintained differential debt policies in the center and the periphery.

Spanish America issued considerably less debt, more credible than coetaneous Castilian debt. However, the issuances’ size did not reflect lower debt capacity in the New World, as the Spanish Empire restrained long-term debt issuance to emergencies. We also provide complementary evidence from debt issuances and explain why differential debt policies were maintained.