The reform of article 135 of the Spanish constitution in August 2011, which for the first time introduced the principle of budgetary stability into the fundamental law of the country, is a positive example of recent progress made in this area.
Innovations and structural changes over the last two decades have no doubt played an important role, namely globalization, advances in information communication technology, and financial innovations and sophistication. Indeed, compared with Japan in the 1990s, the current crisis is far more complex, interconnected and global.