Special issue "Pandemics in history in Spain"

Following the interest in the special issue on Pandemics in History published in 2020 by Investigaciones de Historia Economica - Economic History Research, this present issue deepens in the analysis of this crucial topic with a special focus on Spain. Furthermore, this issue also responds to the renewed national and international interest in the study of past pandemics that has been triggered by COVID-19 outbreak just over a year ago. It includes five original articles that deal with the effects of pandemics in history from the eighteenth century to the present tackling with preindustrial mortality crises, yellow fever in the 18 th century and the beginning of the 19 th century, and the 1918 flu pandemic from a regional context. The issue also provides relevant information regarding the importance of the transfer of knowledge between research institutions, and the tensions that also existed in the past between health experts and political authorities. Our main goal as guest editors of this special issue was gathering new research results to broaden the knowledge on epidemics and their demographic and economic effects from a historical view. In this way, this issue seeks to offer a historical perspective to the COVID-19 pandemic and presents the lessons that we can learn and apply from the past. KEY Classification-JEL: