Convergence of public and private agendas in the shaping of the early modern Hispanic monarchy : an economic-based approach

Abstract

This article reviews the state-building process in the Hispanic Monarchy during the mid-sixteenth century through the analysis of the relationship between Genoese high-rank financiers and Castilian private entrepre-neurs in the international market of wool. The article argues that these two social groups were state builders as they played a key role in the state formation after the first debt consolidation of Philip II in 1557. The out-comes of the research demonstrate that non-state actors organised as informal institutions could perform better in the state-building process than formal institutions in large polities. This work thus complements the recent literature about the decentralisation of effective power in early modern states.