Prediction of the economic cost of individual long-term care in the Spanish population

Pensions together with savings and investments during active life are key elements of retirement planning. Motivation for personal choices about the standard of living, bequest and the replacement ratio of pension with respect to last salary income must be considered. This research contributes to the financial planning by helping to quantify long-term care economic needs. We estimate life expectancy from retirement age onwards. The economic cost of care per unit of service is linked to the expected time of needed care and the intensity of required services. The expected individual cost of long-term care from an onset of dependence is estimated separately for men and women. Assumptions on the mortality of the dependent people compared to the general population are introduced. Parameters defining eligibility for various forms of coverage by the universal public social care of the welfare system are addressed. The impact of the intensity of social services on individual predictions is assessed, and a partial coverage by standard private insurance products is also explored. Data were collected by the Spanish Institute of Statistics in two surveys conducted on the general Spanish population in 1999 and in 2008. Official mortality records and life table trends were used to create realistic scenarios for longevity. We find empirical evidence that the public long-term care system in Spain effectively mitigates the risk of incurring huge lifetime costs. We also find that the most vulnerable categories are citizens with moderate disabilities that do not qualify to obtain public social care support. In the Spanish case, the trends between 1999 and 2008 need to be further explored.

Human Capital Composition and Economic Growth at a Regional Level

With this paper we build a two-region model where both innovation and imitation are performed. In particular imitation takes the form of technological spillovers that lagging regions may exploit given certain human capital conditions. We show how the high skill content of each region’s workforce (rather than the average human capital stock) is crucial to determine convergence towards the income level of the leader region and to exploit the technological spillovers coming from the frontier. The same applies to bureaucratic/institutional quality which are conductive to higher growth in the long run. We test successfully our theoretical result over Spanish regions for the period between 1960 and 1997. We exploit system GMM estimators which allow us to correctly deal with endogeneity problems and small sample bias.

Does human capital stimulate investment in physical capital? Evidence from a cost system framework

The direct effect of human capital on economic growth has been widely analysed in the economic literature. This paper, however, focuses on its indirect effect as a stimulus for private investment in physical capital. The methodological framework used is the duality theory, estimating a cost system aggregated with human capital. Empirical evidence is given for Spain for the period 1980-2000. We provide evidence on the indirect effect of human capital in making private capital investment more attractive. Among the main explanations for this process, we observe that higher worker skill levels enable higher returns to be extracted from investment in physical capital.

Reparar y sustituir cosas en la compraventa : evolución y últimas tendencias

International texts recognise the buyer's right to the repair or replacement if the goods do not conform with the contract, and at the same time, establish exceptions to their application and certain rules of protection for the seller (Art. 46 CISG, Art. 7.2.3 UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, Art.9:102 PECL and Arts. 4:202 y 4:204 (1) PEL S). This approach is a result of a compromise between civil law systems and the common law and it has been widely extended to the regulation of consumer sales over the last decade (Art. 3.3 of the Directive 1999/44/CE, Art. III.-3:302 DCFR, Art. 26 of the proposal for a Directive on Consumer Rights). These norms regulate the different ways of requiring the fulfilment of a contractual obligation from a new paradigm which has little to do with a need to protect the weak consumer which governed the origins of consumer policy in the European Community. Now the idea of the consumer who shall behave economically efficiently prevails in Art. 3.3 of the Directive 1999/44/CE, a norm which is clearly influenced by the international texts and whose transposing into the national legislation of Member States has created important problems for traditional dogmas. In this sense there are still some unclear issues, such as the possibility of replacing in sales of goods of specific nature or second-hand goods, some aspects on the exercise of repair and replacement, and, even, their use as primary remedies rather than a reduction in price or a rescission of the contract. With regard to this, in England the possibility of offering the consumer free choice between these measures if the goods do not conform with the contract has been raised. This is far from the principle of pacta sunt servanda and is clearly contrary to the economic approach of the proposal for a Directive on Consumer Rights. Up to now Spain has limited itself to implementing Art. 3.3 Directive 1999/44/CE into its legal system in almost literal terms and the case law on the issue has completely turned out to be insufficient. By contrast with Germany, the Spanish legislator has not extended the application of the rules of repair and replacement of Directive 1999/44/CE to nonconsumer sales, even though two draft bill proposals along these lines presented by the General Commission for Codifying (“Comisión General de Codificación”), the last one being in January, 2009

European payment system and monetary union

We make a comparative study of payment systems for E.U. -fifteen countries for the 1996-2002 period. Special attention is paid to the introduction of the new European single currency. The overall trend in payments is for a move from cash to noncash payment instruments, although electronic instruments are not widely used yet. We find a significant impact from the introduction of the new banknotes and coins on card use

Balancing effluent quality, economic cost and greenhouse gas emissions during the evaluation of (plant-wide) control/operational strategies in WWTPs

The objective of this paper was to show the potential additional insight that result from adding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to plant performance evaluation criteria, such as effluent quality (EQI) and operational cost (OCI) indices, when evaluating (plant-wide) control/operational strategies in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The proposed GHG evaluation is based on a set of comprehensive dynamic models that estimate the most significant potential on-site and off-site sources of CO2, CH4 and N2O. The study calculates and discusses the changes in EQI, OCI and the emission of GHGs as a consequence of varying the following four process variables: (i) the set point of aeration control in the activated sludge section; (ii) the removal efficiency of total suspended solids (TSS) in the primary clarifier; (iii) the temperature in the anaerobic digester; and (iv) the control of the flow of anaerobic digester supernatants coming from sludge treatment. Based upon the assumptions built into the model structures, simulation results highlight the potential undesirable effects of increased GHG production when carrying out local energy optimization of the aeration system in the activated sludge section and energy recovery from the AD. Although off-site CO2 emissions may decrease, the effect is counterbalanced by increased N2O emissions, especially since N2O has a 300-fold stronger greenhouse effect than CO2. The reported results emphasize the importance and usefulness of using multiple evaluation criteria to compare and evaluate (plant-wide) control strategies in a WWTP for more informed operational decision making