Issue 47 – Summer 2020

The present article provides a detailed overview regarding the position of Spain and its Autonomous Communities in the European Territorial Cooperation (ETC) programmes where the whole country (or some regions) are eligible. This analysis compares the presence of Spain in terms of participation in projects funded by these programmes, focusing on three main variables: the regional scope, that is the relative presence of each Autonomous Community, the thematic scope, in terms of the different thematic axes of the programme, and in terms of the institutional scope, in terms of the typology of participating institutions. To perform this analysis, a brand new database has been generated, aggregating and treating data from eight different sources linked to the four programmes analysed: Interregs Europe, Atlantic, Mediterranean, and South West. The main result shown in the analysis is that Spain participates in ETC on the average of other EUs states, and that the distribution of this participation among AC depends on each programme and changes over the duration of the programming period; we also show that the distribution across the programmes’ thematic objectives is quite proportionally divided and somewhat in alignment with the use of ERDF in each territory; additionally, we conclude that the role of the private sector is still scarce and must be fostered.14

This paper provides a critical assessment of the current legislation on budget stability for the case of the Spanish regions. Particularly, the paper focuses on its very limited effectiveness for the compliance of the deficit and expenditure rules objectives. Moreover, the application of this legislation has experienced significant failures in dealing with the transitory period, the application of the corrective mechanisms, the lack of higher automatism and the interpretation of some provisions related to budget surplus and non-expected fiscal revenues. The possible reform of such legislation should take into consideration a number of issues, namely, the reform of the European economic governance, the changes in the Spanish territorial financing system and the complete revision (if not elimination) of the extraordinary financial funds.

This paper, in closing the knowledge gap for developing countries, aims to estimate the urban wage premium (UWP) in Ecuador for different types of workers by using instrumental variables to address the endogeneity issue. The results show that for formal workers, the wage elasticity is 0.05/0.12 with respect to cantonal population/population density, and 0.049/0.088 with respect to the number of firms/firm density. These estimates are higher than those for informal and self-employed workers. Workers located in metropolis and big cities earn wages 9.6% and 7% higher than those workers located in small towns, respectively. Some cities stand as exceptions because they offer low UWP although they have large populations. This discrepancy could be related to poverty and the disorganized urban growth that cities in developing countries face.

The objective of this work is to contribute to cover the information gap with respect to the estimation of the municipal GDP by presenting a calculation methodology based on the estimation of the differential sectoral productivity of the city with respect to its Autonomous Community. Sectoral wage differentials between cities and Autonomous Communities estimated from the Continuous Sample of Labor Lives for the period 2010-2016 are used. The results seem to indicate that relevant aspects of the economy of cities are being collected, such as, among others, potential economies of agglomeration.

This paper investigates the effect of co-national immigrant´s communities (social networks) and historical international trade relationships (business networks) on the decision of migrants to locate in a particular province within Italy, Portugal and Spain. We study whether spatial dependence also determines the immigration decision by testing for migration spillover effects across provinces in the destination country and by accounting for the effects of social and business networks in contiguous provinces. We find that social networks enhance immigration of co-nationals, a positive effect that is moderated if neighbor provinces have large co-nationals´ communities. For the case of business networks, neighbor provinces having commercial linkages with the immigrants’ origin country compete as alternative destinations. Thus, the impact of immigration spreads over alternative destinations in the host country, so the coordination of local and national migration policies is required to be fully effective.

During the first years of the 21st century, medium and long distance migration of the Spanish born-population has increased, mainly due to rise in mobility of the highly educated. Migration of Spanish qualified young adults to other countries has occupied a preferential position in the academic debate, but little attention has been paid to interregional migration flows by educational attainment, which are currently greater than international out-migration. This research, conducted using data from the 2001 and 2011 population censuses, identifies differentiated migratory dynamics: the university graduates born in the inland and Cantabrian regions are more likely to migrate to the richest autonomous communities, while the population without a university degree shows similar out-migration-rates across time. On the other hand, Madrid increases its capacity to attract the highly educated individuals and displaces the less qualified population towards the north of Castile-La Mancha.

Education is a key element for territorial development. In turn, the territorial dimension influences opportunities. This paper analyses the relevance of the socioeconomic context in Galicia, beyond the family unit. It raises two main question: the relationship between educational aspirations and the academic and socioeconomic profile of the students, and how the territorial variable affects this relationship, through intra and inter educational community analysis. The methodology combines descriptive analysis based on the ANOVA test, with the estimation of an ordinal logistic regression model. The results suggest higher opportunities and training level in the larger areas. In addition, it is found that educational expectations depend on performance and socio-economic index.

Spain is one of the four world leaders in coastal tourism. To keep the top position in such a highly competitive market, coastal managers in Spain need to constantly monitor the social, ecological, and economic components of ‘sun and sea’ tourism. Thus, the main goals of the present study are to analyse the most visited Spanish coastal destinations and to evaluate their competitiveness relative to each other. Indicator analysis was applied to evaluate seaside destinations pursuant to socio-economic and physico-geographical parameters. Results show that the most competitive destination is the Canary Islands, followed by Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, Valencia, Andalusia and Murcia.

Public authorities have played a key role in the tourism competitiveness considering that this agent has the obligation to provide different infrastructures and to guarantee distinct services for both the tourist and the tourist destination itself. The public administrations of the territories in which tourism has an important weight for the economy of Spain have brought to light certain financing problems. Given this fact, the implementation of specific fiscal instruments which tax this activity and that fall to the agents participating in the sector may contribute to obtain the necessary funding to deal with different public policies.