Social Housing under Oligopoly

In this paper it is shown that the setting up of a social housing system may decrease the total number of houses built in the market, induce a price of non-social houses greater than the price of houses without that system and increase the profits of housing developers even in situations where they have to sell social houses at a price below production cost. The analysis considers a situation with imperfect competition in the housing market and with a social housing system where housing developers must provide some social houses when they obtain a permit to build non-social houses.

Social Security, Education, Retirement and Growth

In this paper we analyze the effects of social security policies in an unfunded, earnings-related social security system on the incentives to education investment and voluntary retirement, on growth and on income inequality. Growth is endogenously driven by human capital investment, individuals differ in their innate (learning) ability at birth, and the pension scheme includes a minimum pension. More skilled individuals spend more on education, minimum pensions reduce low skill individuals' incentives to invest in human capital, there is no monotonic relationship between per capita growth and income inequality.

Non-Stationary Demand in a Durable Goods Monopoly

In a context where demand for the services of a durable good changes over time, and this change may be uncertain, the paper shows that social welfare may be higher when the monopolist seller can commit to any future price level she wishes than when she cannot. Moreover, the equilibrium under a monopolist with commitment power may Pareto-dominate the equilibrium under a monopolist without commitment ability. These results affect the desired regulation of a durable goods monopolist in this context.

Optimal Correction for Guessing in Multiple-Choice Tests

Building on Item Response Theory we introduce students’ optimal behavior in multiple-choice tests. Our simulations indicate that the optimal penalty is relatively high, because although correction for guessing discriminates against risk-averse subjects, this effect is small compared with the measurement error that the penalty prevents. This result obtains when knowledge is binary or partial, under different normalizations of the score, when risk aversion is related to knowledge and when there is a pass-fail break point. We also find that the mean degree of difficulty should be close to the mean level of knowledge and that the variance of difficulty should be high.

Bancos, bibliotecas y cementerios: usos de las analogías y las clasificaciones en el razonamiento sobre biotecnología

[ES] El uso de analogías en bioética es muy frecuente. Dado que son instrumentos especialmente eficaces desde un punto de vista retórico, resulta fundamental determinar bajo qué condiciones la formulación de analogías constituye un recurso discursivo legítimo. En este artículo, distinguimos entre usos no-discursivos y usos discursivos de las analogías, y dentro de estos últimos, entre usos explicativos y usos argumentativos. En base a esta clasificación, proponemos distintos conjuntos de criterios para determinar si una analogía particular constituye un recurso discursivo legítimo o no. Para ello, ilustramos nuestra clasificación mediante ejemplos tomados del reciente debate ético y jurídico sobre los biobancos.

The Impact of Firm Level Contracting on Wage Levels and Inequality: Spain 1995-2002

This paper provides microeconomic evidence on the variation over time of the firm-specific wage premium in Spain from 1995 to 2002, and its impact on wage inequality. We make use of two waves of a detailed linked employer-employee data set. In addition, a new data set with financial information on firms is used for 2002 to control as flexibly as possible for differences in the performance of firms (aggregated at industry level). To our knowledge, there is no microeconomic evidence on the dynamics of the firm-specific wage premium for Spain or for any other country with a similar institutional setting. Our results suggest that there is a clear tendency towards centralization in the collective bargaining process in Spain over this seven-year period, that the firm-level contract wage premium undergoes a substantial decrease, particularly for women, and finally that the "centralization" observed in the collective bargaining process has resulted in a slight decrease in wage inequality.

R&D Policy in Economies with Endogenous Growth and Non-Renewable Resources

The aim of this paper is to analyze how active R&D policies affect the growth rate of an economy with endogenous growth and non-renewable resources. We know from Scholz and Ziemens (1999) and Groth (2006) that in infinitely lived agents (ILA) economies, any active R&D policy increases the growth rate of the economy. To see if this result also appears in economies with finite lifetime agents, we developed an endogenous growth overlapping generations (OLG) economy à la Diamond which uses non-renewable resources as essential inputs in final good’s production. We show analytically that any R&D policy that reduces the use of natural resources implies a raise in the growth rate of the economy. Numerically we show that in economies with low intertemporal elasticity of substitution (IES), active R&D policies lead the economy to increase the depletion of non-renewable resources. Nevertheless, we find that active R&D policies always imply increases in the endogenous growth rate, in both scenarios. Furthermore, when the IES coefficient is lower (greater) than one, active R&D policies affect the growth rate of the economy in the ILA more (less) than in OLG economies.

Entry into motherhood: The effect of wages

Using the ECHP, we explored the determinants of having the first child in Spain. Our main goal was to study the relation between female wages and the decision to enter motherhood. Since the offered wage of non-working women is not observed, we estimate it and impute a potential wage to each woman (working and non-working). This potential wage enable us to investigate the effect of wages (the opportunity cost of time non-worked and dedicated to children) on the decision to have the first child, for both workers and non-workers. Contrary to previous results, we found that female wages are positively related to the likelihood of having the first child. This result suggests that the income effect overcomes the substitution effect when non-participants opportunity cost is also taken into account.

Dos formatos (papel y online) de un programa educativo para la mejora del autoconcepto físico

[Es] El autoconcepto físico juega un papel decisivo en el bienestar personal y la prevención de trastornos y dificultades de conducta. De ahí la importancia de ayudar educativamente al desarrollo de adecuadas autopercepciones físicas. En este artículo se ofrece un análisis comparativo de dos formatos (papel y on line) de un mismo programa de intervención educativa para la mejora del autoconcepto implementado con estudiantes universitarios. Los datos obtenidos en la medida del autoconcepto físico no confirman una mejora significativa, lo cual no necesariamente desacredita el programa ya que puede atribuirse en parte a determinadas limitaciones observadas en la aplicación del mismo. Por otra parte, la valoración del programa que realizan los sujetos participantes es notablemente positiva, en particular, la de quienes han utilizado la versión on line.

Inequality for Wage Earners and Self-Employed: Evidence from Panel Data

Published as an article in: Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 2009, vol. 71, issue 4, pages 491-518.

Optimal fiscal policy in a multisector model with minimum expenditure requirements

This paper investigates optimal fiscal policy in a static multisector model. A Ramsey type planner chooses tax rates on each good type as well as spending levels on each good type subject to an exogenous total expenditure constraint and requirements that some minimum amount of spending be undertaken in each sector. It is shown that optimal policy does not equally spend in each sector but instead results in one of the minimum expenditure constraints binding.

Altruism with Social Roots: An Emerging Literature

Revised: 2007-01.-- Published as an article in: Revista Desarrollo y Sociedad (2006), Semestre II, pp. 245-260.

Labor Market Assimilation of Recent Immigrants in Spain

Revised: 2006-11.-- Published as an article in: British Journal of Industrial Relations, June 2007, vol. 45, issue 2, pp. 257-284.

Ceilings and Floors? Gender Wage Gaps by Education in Spain

Revised: 2006-11.-- Published as an article in: Journal of Population Economics, 2007, vol. 21 issue 3, pp. 751-776.

Life Expectancy, Human Capital, Social Security and Growth

Revised: 2006-11.-- Published as an article in: Journal of Public Economics 90(12), December, 2006, pp. 2323-2349.