Otoño 2008

The location of ICT producing industries does matter for global competitiveness and long-run growth potential. For instance, the differing contribution of ICT to economic growth between the US and the EU is often mentioned as one of the main cause explaining the diverging growth performance of these two areas since the mid-1990s. In turn, since the mid-1990s, countries with especially dynamic economic growth have tended to be highly specialized in ICT-producing and ICT-using industries, see van Ark and Inkaar (2005). More generally, ICT producing sectors, tend to promote technological change and innovative capability which are seen to be at the core of economic growth and competitiveness. When considering the EU economy, ICT industries appear to be concentrated in a limited number of regions, see Koski et al. (2002) for empirical evidence. Afirst objective of the present paper is to document the location of ICT producing industries in European regions in order to map existing EU clusters as well as to analyze recent changes in these industries using recent data on employment and firm location, especially in relation to the EU enlargement that has taken place in May 2004. The location of the ICT-producing sectors is not the end of the story however. A crucial aspect concerns the nature of activities that are being undertaken in different regions. Importantly, ICT industries do have different characteristics in terms of human capital, skill requirement, and knowledge content. In particular, because of the positive association between human capital, knowledge and long-run growth, it is important to analyze to what extent EU regional ICT clusters differ in according to these characteristics. The second question addressed in the paper concerns the nature of ICT activities undertaken in EU regions. Finally, the paper provides econometric estimates of the location of firms in ICT industries across EU regions. The paper considers more specifically the case of multinationals’ location. Results on the determinants of firms’ location appear to differ widely depending on the ICT sector considered as well as the type of companies considered. A number of policy implications are derived from these results.

This essay employs nonparametric and spatial techniques commonly used in the Spatial Economics literature to study the labor productivity of the central region of Mexico at the municipio (county) level. In particular, we measure the spatial autocorrelation of the labor productivity and use a spatial approach to study the intra-distributional changes of the productivity. The results show that the labor productivity reveals strong local disparities and spatial dependency across municipios. When subregions are defined by the spatial autocorrelation of labor productivity, it is found that the central region of Mexico has maintained a strong polarization between rich (the metropolitan area of Mexico City) and poor regions (south of Puebla). It is also found that new regions such as the new dynamic corridor Puebla-Tlaxcala-Apizaco and Toluca’s valley have emerged. The spatial results of this essay can be related to the findings of other regional studies that detect a spatial refunctionalization of the manufacture activities, migration flows and sub-metropolitan regions in the central region of Mexico since the beginning of the liberalization process. This essay concludes that the recent territorial changes of the region, independently of their causes, have kept labor productivity with strong spatial dependency and regional inequality.

The article aims to explain the different patterns of economic development in Europe based on an assessment of regional and national performance with regard to innovation, entrepreneurship and difference in the industrial structure. The central hypothesis of the paper is that large intra-regional disparities do not necessarily lead to lower economic growth on the national level than smaller disparities do. On the contrary, the polarization of economic activities can lead to excess growth in some cases, and contribute to a process of convergence between nations. To address the mechanisms behind this process, the long run patterns of convergence and disparities in regional economic performance with regard to GDP and the distribution of employment are analyzed on the regional and the national level for selected European countries. The paper focuses on the apparent contradiction between increasing intra-national disparities on the regional level in most industrialized countries and the overall tendency toward convergence on the national level in Europe and tries to provide some tentative explanations based on empirical as well as theoretical considerations.

The main aim of this paper is to evaluate the role of quality of life in population growth in a local framework. To achieve that objective we use a theoretical model that considers the basic variables that explain urban growth; we detail what do we understand when we talk about quality of life, and how do we measure the concept; and we also focus on a case study, the municipalities of the province of Barcelona within the 1991-2000 period. Finally we estimate the empirical model using instrumental variables and also considering the existence of heterokedasticity and spatial autocorrelation for the municipalities in the Barcelona province. In the paper, besides estimating the role of different factors in urban growth, we pose an additional question: what is the better way to include in the model the concept of quality of life?

In this paper we study the spatial mobility that characterizes the Spanish contemporaneous labor market, focusing our attention on the period 2001-2006. To this end, we use data on registered employment contracts as supplied by the Instituto Nacional de Empleo. Initial objective was to identify the spatial structure that exists in the data. We extend the analysis by introducing the sectoral and socio-demographic details of the migrants. However and given the weakness of the spatial structure that we found, we decided to specify a dynamic panel data model. This solution allows us to combine the spatial dimension, which gives support to the data, with the strong time dynamics of the flows.

The studies on regional fiscal flows try to respond to the question of which it is territorial distribution of the revenues and expenses of a determined government. For it, they analyze the characteristics of the different types of revenues and expenditures, set a criteria of territorial imputation to those characteristics, compile the territorial and statistical information available, come to carry out the required calculations to impute territorially each type of revenues and expenditures and, finally, adds the imputations to each territory and obtains the fiscal balances. In the last years, the social repercussion of these studies in Spain is very remarkable, since their results are used in the debates on interterritorial solidarity and regional governments financing. Nevertheless, it contrasts with the lack of recent data, since the most recent estimations for the set of the Spanish CCAA are referred to 1996. In this work the main characteristics of the methodology followed and the results obtained in the estimation of the regional fiscal flows of the Central Public Administration are presented and analyzed for years 1991-2005.

The aim of this paper is to test whether the condition of “double insularity”, -i.e. being resident in one of the five small islands of the seven Canary Islands- has any effect on equity in the utilisation of public health care services. Data on 4.320 participants from the 2004 Canary Health Survey were considered for this analysis. A zero inflated negative binomial (ZINB) model was estimated for each of the four health services analysed (general practice services, specialist services, emergency services and hospitalisations), controlling for area of residence, for health care need and for socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, measured at the individual level. The results show evidence that, in general, the “double insularity” condition represents a limitation in the utilisation of public health care services, therefore to the detriment of the residents in the small islands.

We identify a number of elements of the current Spanish system of regional financing that do not conform satisfactorily to the principles of equity, autonomy and efficiency that should inspire its design. Our main conclusion is that although the system presents a series of shortcomings that would require an in-depth reform, its basic focus on the equalization of the service provision capacity of all regional governments should be preserved because it is in accordance with the constitutional guarantee of equal rights for all citizens and with notions of horizontal equity that are widely shared in our country. In fact, the main shortcoming of the system is, in our opinion, that it does not fully guarantee such equality in practice. Additional weaknesses of the system are its lack of transparency, the absence of mechanisms to maintain vertical equilibrium across the different levels of the administration and a significant deficit of fiscal autonomy and responsibility on the part of regional governments. Starting from this diagnostic, we provide a series of recommendations for reform that attempt to correct the system’s shortcomings.