Torres Martinez graduated from the University of Valencia in 1925. He received a scholarship to study in Bologna where he earned his Doctorate with a thesis entitled “Inheritance Tax”. Back in Valencia, he served as an assistant professor in the Department of Political Economy and Public Finance at the Faculty of Law of the University of Valencia. His first work was titled “A contribution to the Study of Valencian Economy” (1930) setting the tone for many of his future studies in the field of Agricultural Economics.

During the thirties, Torres M. attended the courses on economics, politics and administration that the Faculty of Law of the Central University organized. After the Civil War, he went back to the University of Valencia and held the Chair of Political Economy and Public Finance in 1942. A year later, in 1943, his publication “General Theory of the Multiplier” would perhaps be the first well-documented work based on Keynesian theories in Spain.

In 1945, Torres held the Chair of Economic Theory in the Faculty of Political Sciences and Economics in which he served as Dean from 1951 to 1958. In 1944, he was appointed National Economic Adviser. Torres led the creation of a new national accounting system in Spain in 1954, and collaborated on drawing the first input-output table of the Spanish Economy. In 1956, he played a significant role in the creation of the best body of trained economists of the public administration. In addition, it is worth pointing out his involvement with the European economic integration during the fifties.

Among his publications during the post-war period are works that conveyed Torres’ interest in Spanish agricultural economics, such as “The Wheat Problem and other Fundamental Issues of Spanish Agriculture” (1944) and also various studies on applied economics with regard to the evaluation of national income, public finance problems or social policy.  In these studies Torres shows more interest in economic policy than in economic theory, as revealed  in the titles of his last books: “Theory of Social Policy” (1949) and “Theory and Practice of the Economic Policy”(1955).

Luis Perdices de Blas, John Reeder y Estrella Trincado Aznar

 

Manuel de Torres Martínez's writings in the UCM Library

Go to History of UCM - Faculties of Political and Economic Sciences

Go to Notable Alumni