Gonzalo Anes y Álvarez de Castrillón
Economics 2009Doctor of Economics. Director of the Royal Academy of History.
Jury rulingThe jury for the Rei Jaume I Prizes in Economics, meeting in Valencia, has unanimously decided to award the 2009 prize to Mr Gonzalo Anes y Álvarez de Castrillón.
This recognition is in honour of his extraordinary career as a researcher and lecturer, which began with his appointment to the chairs of Economic History and the History of Economic Institutions, in 1967 and 1968 in Santiago de Compostela and Madrid respectively, and culminating in his appointment as Director of the Royal Academy of History in 1988.
He is one of the most distinguished historians of 18th-century Spain, both in the field of economics – where he followed the approach of the French school of Labrousse and Braudel in reconstructing historical time series on population, prices and wages – and in the more general aspects of economic relations between Spain and Spanish America during that century; and more recently, in studies of the Enlightenment in eighteenth-century Spain and in his notable comparative works between Spain and other European countries.
He has been the pioneering figure behind an important school of economic historians, drawing on both history and economic theory, and, as President of the Royal Academy, he is one of the most important contemporary Spanish historians.
