Otoño 2005

In this work we observe the role of public and human capital through an extended version of the Solow model,and we test its main implication that in the long run growth is only drived by technological progress which is exogenous.We estimate a panel data with fixed effects and we obtain several interesting results.First, we obtain favourable conclusions about the predictive capacity of the Solow model for the Spanish regions and that the main restriction of the model holds.However,we find evidence against the other basic prediction of the Solow model that the long run growth rate is only determined by technological progress that is exogenous.The prin- cipal reason is the observed strong correlation between the growth rates of the labour force and production per worker.We also obtain a relevant role of human capital. Second,we elaborate a measure of the rate of growth of the Total Factor Productivity (TFP)using the Divisia-Tornqvist index and we find that it is independent of the investment in private capital and the growth rate of labour force.Its only appear weakly significant the investment in human and public capital variables.This result could be consistent with the prediction of the Solow model.

This paper proposes that a virtuous circle for the sustainable develop- ment of a city or region is achieved through a process whereby proactive and strong leadership and effective institutions enhance the capacity and capability of a place to better use its resource endowments and gain an improved market fit in becoming competitive and being entrepreneurial.It is proposed that the performance of a city or region at a point in time and the path of its economic development over time may be represented by its position in a Regional Competitiveness Performance Cube.The paper proposes a new model framework whereby a city or region ’s economic deve- lopment and performance is an outcome dependent on how its resource endowments and market fit as quasi-independent variables are mediated by the interaction bet- ween leadership,institutions,and entrepreneurship as intervening variables.The ex- periences of a number of case study cities from a variety of settings in the US,Eu- rope,Asia and Australia are explored within that framework.

The aim of this paper is to assess adherence to announced annual bud- getary targets of a set of fiscal revenue data for the Regional Government of Andalu- sia (1994-2002).The statistical methodology of Kanda (2002)is employed for eva- luating the likelihood of meeting annual fiscal revenue targets,given partial-year monthly data.The results suggest that monthly profiles where consistent in almost all the considered cases with the attainment of the annual goals.In addition,a trend is observed in Direct Taxes and Estate and Other Taxes to under perform annual objec- tives,while Indirect Taxes tend to over perform annual targets.

The introduction of a mix of tax shares has been the main reform of the Spanish regional financing system,in effect since January 2002.The aim of this pa- per is obtaining,given a basic expenditure needs,its optimal composition for each re- gional government (so-called «Comunidad Autónoma de Régimen Común »)and for the central government.The optimality of the mix comes from the minimisation of the variance of the mix of taxes given a certain tax yield (Markowitz,1952)and gua- ranteeing,at the same time,the financial sufficiency in the first year.The results ob- tained from applying the methodology for the period 2002-07 show a certain hetero- geneity among regions with respect to the composition of the optimal tax mix.As long as both tax yield and financial risk are taken into consideration,the preferred ta- xes are gasoline taxes,alcohol taxes,and cigarette taxes.Given that these excise ta- xes do not guarantee financial sufficiency,these are complemented with tax shares in the VAT and in the personal income tax.In the extreme cases in which either only tax yield or financial risk is taken into account,with respect to the complementary tax shares,regions prefer the VAT and the personal income tax,respectively.

In spite of the fact that we are immersed in a global economy,in many aspects innovation is mainly a regional phenomenon,in which services,(ne- glected until now)and in particular those called knowledge intensive services (KIS), acquire a central role,thanks to their capacity to transmit knowledge,especially of a tacit type.The aim of this paper is to carry out an initial empirical analysis of the ef- fects associated with the location of KIS,using 107 European regions.The results ob- tained support the hypothesis that KIS exert a positive impact on regional innovative performance,an impact that could spill over into the neighbouring regions.

This paper aims to evaluate a number of spatial aspects of Brazil ’s cu- rrent commercial policy,emphasizing those relating to bilateral trade with Argentina, its main trading partner in Mercosur.A national computable general equilibrium mo- del was developed and implemented (EFES-ARG)—integrated with an interstate trade model —,in order to evaluate the sectoral/regional impacts of different trade strategies towards Argentina.The analysis of the short-run regional aspects of Brazil- Argentina trade relations reveals a trend towards concentration of the level of econo- mic activity in the states of the Brazilian south and southeast.

This paper presents a bibliometric analysis of the contributions that have been presented to the 30 Spanish Regional Studies Meetings which have been hold since 1973. Firstly, the paper displays rankings of the authors and institutions that have participated more actively in the Meetings. Secondly, the paper analyses the main changes in the objectives, topics and research techniques of the contributions, as well as in the scientific specialisation of their authors. This analysis allows drawing some conclusions on the evolution of Regional Science in Spain throughout the last 30 years.

Since the initial input-output models conceived by Leontief in the 1930’s, the input-output theory has gone through a lot of development at the theoretical as well as applied point of view. However, despite all the progress, there is still one point that needs further consideration into the analysis, i.e., how to visualize, and to analyze, in an easy way the vast amount of data and information contained into input- output systems. In this paper two different ways to look at input-output data are presented, i.e., landscapes and electroeconograms. The examples are conducted using as the main source of data an interregional input-output system consisted of 10 regions (nine Amazon states and the Rest of Brazil region) constructed for the year of 1999 by Guilhoto et al. (2002) for the Amazon Bank (BASA).

In this paper the monitoring of the Lisbon Strategy is analysed. In order to do that, in a first stage a summary of the Lisbon Strategy is made, with an analysis of its objectives, list of structural indicators and an overall evaluation. A brief summary is made on the relaunch of the Agenda and on its consequences on the reform of the Cohesion Policy. In a second stage, we develop an analysis of the structural indicators evolution against general economic background indicators both at cross section and temporal dimensions, focusing on economic growth. In this sense, the analysis made by the Commission is complemented with a discussion about the implications that the evolution of these indicators may have on economic growth. This would provide a richer explanation on the role that these aspects are having in EU development and growth.

In this paper we critically assess some economic principles underlying the European transport policy in recent years. In particular, our analysis focuses on three main ideas. The first one is the promising role played by the vertical unbundling of transport infrastructures and services as a key instrument to introduce more competition in this industry. The second is how efficient pricing mechanisms could be more extensively used to mitigate the negative consequences of some transport externalities. And the last, but not the least important, is the increasing need of a more comprehensive economic analysis of large infrastructure projects in order to allocate the funds where the network effects associated to the transport system as a whole could provide larger social returns.