The economy of the Canary Islands, one of the most responsive of the last forty years in Spain, is the object of study of this work, which is part of the framework of collaboration that the BBV Foundation and the Valencian Institute for Economic Research (IVIE) to study of the Spanish regional economy. The Islands took off in the 1960s, and their dynamism is characterized by the development of tourism services to the detriment of the primary sector. From 1955 to 1996 output per person in the region has multiplied by a factor of over four. With a rate of job creation that is higher than the national average, the Islands nevertheless have high rates of unemployment due to the significant rate of population growth.