Primavera 2013

This paper evaluates whether the learning mechanisms of the European Cohesion policy have contributed to improve the economic impact of Structural Fund expenditure over time. It analyses whether the evolution of the policy in response to greater internal monitoring and external scrutiny has resulted in a more efficient and better targeted Cohesion policy. This is tested using an econometric model which evaluates the effect of Structural Fund expenditure on the growth of regional GDP per capita —conditional on factor endowments, institutional quality and initial conditions— during the last programming periods for which full sets of data are available (1994-1999 and 2000-2006). The results of the analysis unveil an increase in the effectiveness of the policy in successive periods. This positive association is robust to controlling for the level of development of the country and the relative economic position of a region within a country. The results also show that, when structural factors are taken into consideration, Structural Fund investment tends to yield higher returns in better-off countries and wealthier regions within countries.

This paper presents an exploratory analysis of the relation between where a firm is located and its productivity. The analysis distinguishes two location characteristics measured at the municipality level: local agglomeration measured by population density and access to markets captured through market potential. The results show a significant positive relation between both local population density and market potential and firm-level productivity. The results further indicate that while productivity is higher in urban areas, the cross-sectional association between market potential and firm-level productivity appears higher outside urban areas.

This work constitutes a contribution to the analysis of long term patterns of population concentration applied to the case of Spain. The proposed methodology is based on the homogenisation of both data and administrative units which takes the municipal structure of the 2001 census as its base reference. This work seeks to show how applying spatial analysis techniques to this type of homogeneous data series allows us to make more detailed studies of population patterns within a given territory. The most important conclusions that we reached was that, in Spain, sustained population growth has followed a spatial pattern that has become increasingly consolidated over time. The tendencies observed have produced an uneven distribution of population within the national territory marked by the existence of a series of well-defined, and often very localised, areas that spread beyond the limits of the official administrative boundaries.

This paper aims to analyze regional variability in youth poverty in Spain. We deploy the Spanish Survey of Income and Living Conditions to conduct a random effects or multilevel logit model. Results point to regional variability due to diverse impact of age, human capital, living arrangements, number of children, nationality and the recent economic crisis. Regional differences do not entirely respond to the variables included in the analysis and may be explained by other indicators such as those related to the structure of the productive system or the redistributive capacity of the social benefits from the autonomous communities.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the determinants of labour productivity growth in the hospitality industry in Spain using regional data over the period 1996-2004. The results obtained suggest that the increase in the number of 3-star hotels and the reduction process in the stock of physical capital per worker are factors which may have contributed to the fall in productivity growth. However, increased regional tourism intensity has a positive impact on the growth of labour productivity. Nonetheless, changes in demand-related factors, such as average length of stay and the seasonality of demand, have not had a significant aggregate impact on labour productivity growth during this period.

This paper investigates the effect of uncertainty on household decisions regarding consumption. Based on Spanish regional data and taking as a theoretical reference precautionary saving models, we investigate whether macroeconomic uncertainty significantly affects household consumption. To analyze the potential association between these two factors, we used the predicted conditional volatility based on ARMA-GARCH models estimated on regional data. The results show that this measure of uncertainty has a significant effect on household consumption, especially when uncertainty is measured using an ADL model of past uncertainty. As an additional step, we attempt to identify regional patterns to account for the results.

The Spanish Water Act, 2001 shifted responsibility for wastewater treatment from municipal to regional government, and as a consequence the Autonomous Communities have begun to levy a Sanitation Charge, apparently with environmental objectives. Industrial demand for water in Aragon is estimated in this paper using a double logarithmic model with panel data to establish whether regional Sanitation Charges rationalise water consumption. The key explanatory variable is the Sanitation Charge, in addition to the water supply charges payable in the towns and cities of Aragon and other variables which capture the characteristics of the firms in the sample. The reduction in water demand achieved appears to be due to the environmental charge rather than to any actual increase in firms’ water costs.

This paper examines the recent application of the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to the analysis of population distribution. We mention the efforts of the National Statistical Institutes in this direction boosted by the last census 2011.

The stating point is a growing need to have available population figures for areas not related to administrative boundaries, either user defined zones or in grid format.

This allows a convenient zonal system to combine demographic characteristics with environmental and pure geographic data, so the relation between the man and the environment can be analyzed in a unified way.

Eventually, we offer a practical illustration of the interactions between GIS techniques and administrative population data in the study of spatial population distribution: We build a density grid for Spain by dasymetric methods from census tracts population data and Land Cover and Use Information System of Spain (SIOSE).

The analysis is done within the spatial reference framework of the European Union.