Exposure to Chinese imports andlocal labor market outcomes. An Analysis for Spanish provinces

In the period 1999-2007 Spanish imports from China multiplied by six, making that Asian country the fourth largest supplier to the Spanish economy. In this paper, we analyse whether this massive increase in imports impacted on the labour markets of Spanish provinces to differing degrees, due to differences in their initial productive specialization. Our results show that Spanish provinces with a higher exposure to Chinese imports experienced larger drops in manufacturing employment as a share of the working-age population. However, this reduction was compensated for by increases in non-manufacturing employment.

Identifying the role of natural resources in knowledge-based strategies of development

Knowledge has adopted a preferential role in the explanation of development while the evidence about the effect of natural resources in countries’ performance is more controversial in the economic literature. This paper tries to demonstrate that natural resources may positively affect growth in countries with a strong natural resources specialization pattern although the magnitude of these effects depend on the type of resources and on other aspects related to the production and innovation systems. The positive trajectory described by a set of national economies mainly specialized in natural resources and low-tech industries invites us to analyze what is the combination of factors that serves as engine for a sustainable development process. With panel data for the period 1996-2008 we estimate an applied growth model where both traditional factors and other more related to innovation and absorptive capabilities are taken into account. Our empirical findings show that according to the postulates of a knowledge-based approach, a framework that combines physical and intangible factors is more suitable for the definition of development strategies in those prosperous economies dominated by natural resources and connected activities, while the internationalization process of activities and technologies become also a very relevant aspect.

Patterns of local R&D cooperation of foreign subsidiaries in an intermediate country: innovative and structural factors

We attempt to contribute to a better understanding of cooperative innovation patterns of foreign subsidiaries (FS) in Spain as a representative intermediate country, going deeply into three main aspects: firstly, a sectoral taxonomy which combines international technological dynamism and revealed technological advantage as a way to understand such patterns. Secondly we focus our attention on innovative intensive subsidiaries, assuming they are the most important ones for hosting countries. Thirdly, we combine innovation and structural-competitive variables to explain local cooperation. We found more intense cooperation of FS with local agents in dynamic specialization sectors, as well as the fact that this is mostly carried out in a complementary mode with inner knowledge capabilities of the companies. Cooperative activities are influenced by economicstructural factors of the Spanish economy, particularly in highly innovative companies. Cooperative strategies of domestic firms might also have an influence on those of foreign subsidiaries.