0000000000114546
AUTHOR
Ezequiel Uriel
Public capital and productive efficiency in the Spanish regions (1964–89)
The article analyses the evolution of the differences in economic conditions among Spanish regions from the perspective provided by the recent advances made in economic growth empirics. Although convergence is usually established in terms of Gross Value Added (GVA) per capita, in the case of Spain it is of special interest to break it down into three separate elements: activity rate, employment rate, and productivity of labour. Regional differences in unemployment rates, which persist for long periods of time, are identified as a force against convergence. After describing the distinction between conditional and non conditional convergence, the paper considers the role played by the product…
La economía intangible en España: Evolución y distribución por territorios y sectores (1995-2014)
La presente investigación tiene como objetivo estimar la inversión en activos intangibles más allá del PIB —es decir, aquellos que todavía no han sido incluidos por los sistemas de cuentas nacionales— para las comunidades autónomas españolas. De esta forma, España se convierte en el primer país de la Unión Europea para el que existe esta información a nivel regional. Las estimaciones presentan también un elevado grado de desagregación sectorial con la finalidad de completar las informaciones que ya están disponibles sobre las fuentes de crecimiento de las regiones españolas durante el periodo 1995-2014. Con el fin de proporcionar una visión lo más completa posible, tanto la base de datos co…
Estimation of the stock of capital in Spain
The paper presents the methodology and results of the estimation of the endowments of capital in the Spanish economy. It distinguishes between endowments of public capital and private capital. The series corresponding to the public sector cover the period 1955–97 and consider seven categories (or functions). The estimates are disaggregated by 17 regions and 50 provinces. The level of disaggregation is regional and provincial (NUTS2 and NUTS3 in European terminology). The private capital series cover the period 1964–97 and consider 17 sectors of production, with disaggregation at regional level. The information refers to two variables: gross formation of fixed capital (in current and constan…
Infrastructures and Productivity in the Spanish Regions
The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of public capital, the types of infrastructures in which it is invested, and their territorial distribution in the gains in productivity of the private sector in the Spanish regions in the period 1964-1991 using panel data techniques to control for unobserved state-specific characteristics. The results obtained show how the infrastructures most directly linked to the productive process present a significant and positive effect on productivity. They also show the importance of the network effect of the infrastructures of a productive nature as well as a decrease in the elasticity associated with such infrastructures as development progresses. El p…
Public capital, productive efficiency and convergence in the Spanish regions (1964-93)
This paper analyses the behaviour of productive efficiency in the Spanish regions for the period 1964–93. From a growth accounting approach, it describes the regional evolution of total factor productivity (TFP'), based on a private inputs production function. A stricter measure of efficiency is then quantified, which is not equivalent to Solow's residual, since public capital is included in the production function and constant returns to scale are not imposed. Finally, on the basis of the measures of total factor productivity and efficiency, the study discusses the existence of technological convergence among Spanish regions and the role played in it by public capital. The renewed interest…
ESTIMATION OF AN EXTENDED SAM WITH HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTION FOR SPAIN 1995
This paper implements the conceptual framework sketched by Pyatt (1990) to construct an extended Social Accounting Matrix for Spain in 1995 (ESAM-95) to consider, in addition to the market economy, the production of services provided by households through unpaid work. In doing so, the ESAM-95 integrates the accounts related to market activities (ESA accounts) with non-market activities (non-ESA accounts) in a consistent way. Additional classifications are introduced in both ESA and non-ESA accounts in order to disaggregate the institutional accounts by household type and those of production factors by educational level and gender. The extended SAM is useful to calibrate CGE models in which …
Time Use and Food Taxation in Spain
We evaluate the welfare impact of changing the VAT on food in a context in which households can produce home meals for own consumption that compete with meals served in restaurants. Home production of meals requires the combination of food and time inputs. The fiscal treatment in home production of both the inputs and the final product differs from market production of meals, generating different channels of inefficiency. We calibrate a simple general-equilibrium model for the Spanish economy that identifies three types of consumers according to their income, and simulate the effects of some experiments related to how food is taxed. The results suggest that if we focus only on aggregate wel…
The determinants of post-compulsory education in Spain
In this article we explain why Spain is at the bottom of the developed countries in secondary education. We have made use of extensive information contained in the ECHP supplemented with labour market data. We find that higher rates of unemployment diminish the probability of investing in post-compulsory education and this effect differs across the population. Our results suggest that a ‘poverty effect’ makes access more difficult to secondary education in Spain.
Testing price-fixing agreements in a multimarket context: The European case of vitamin C
In this paper, we suggest a method to test price-fixing agreements. Prices fixed to multiple shipments are decomposed into a set of destination market effects and time effects in order to allow us to perform an analysis of residuals. We examine the pricing behavior of vitamin C in the European destination markets of German exports. We explore two different periods: January 1991–August 1995 and September 1995–September 2001. Empirical results on the first period, which are consistent with our knowledge obtained from firms’ confessions about illegal agreements, contrast notably with those obtained on the more recent period.