Evaluation of subsidies programs to sell green cars: Impact on prices, quantities and efficiency

During the recent period of economic crisis, many countries have introduced scrappage schemes to boost the sale and production of vehicles, particularly of vehicles designed to pollute less. In this paper, we analyze the impact of a particular scheme in Spain (Plan2000E) on vehicle prices and sales figures as well as on the reduction of polluting emissions from vehicles on the road. We considered the introduction of this scheme an exogenous policy change and because we could distinguish a control group (non-subsidized vehicles) and a treatment group (subsidized vehicles), before and after the introduction of the Plan, we were able to carry out our analysis as a quasi-natural experiment. Our study reveals that manufacturers increased vehicle prices by the same amount they were granted through the Plan (1,000 €). In terms of sales, econometric estimations revealed an increase of almost 5% as a result of the implementation of the Plan. With regard to environmental efficiency, we compared the costs (inverted quantity of money) and the benefits of the program (reductions in polluting emissions and additional fiscal revenues) and found that the Plan would only be beneficial if it boosted demand by at least 30%.

Gènere i bilingüisme: connectant experiències i teories. Introductory paper in Santaemilia, José, Patricia Bou, Sergio Maruenda i Gora Zaragoza International Perspectives on Gender and Language

Peer-reviewed

Migration and information flows. A new lens for the study of contemporary international migration

Aquest document de treball mira d'establir un nou camp d'investigació a la cruïlla entre els fluxos de migració i d'informació i comunicació. Hi ha diversos factors que fan que valgui la pena adoptar aquesta perspectiva. El punt central és que la migració internacional contemporània és incrustada en la dinàmica de la societat de la informació, seguint models comuns i dinàmiques interconnectades. Per consegüent, s'està començant a identificar els fluxos d'informació com a qüestions clau en les polítiques de migració. A més, hi ha una manca de coneixement empíric en el disseny de xarxes d'informació i l'ús de les tecnologies d'informació i comunicació en contextos migratoris. Aquest document de treball també mira de ser una font d'hipòtesis per a investigacions posteriors.

E-Governance and Citizen Information : The Generalitat of Catalonia in the International Context. Research report (synthesis document)

Aquest estudi té com a objectiu principal analitzar les transformacions que s'esdevenen al voltant de la incorporació d'innovacions tecnològiques de l'entorn de les TIC en els processos d'atenció al ciutadà per part de les administracions públiques. Les transformacions que hem analitzat tenen a veure amb tres dimensions que hem considerat bàsiques. D'una banda, ens hem centrat en els canvis que es produeixen en la forma en què els ciutadans (com a principals, tot i que no únics, usuaris) i l'administració es relacionen entre sí. De l'altra hem analitzat les transformacions que s'esdevenen en el funcionament intern i en la pròpia organització de l'administració arran de les transformacions dels canals de comunicació amb els usuaris. Per últim, hem considerat els canvis en la forma de gestionar (dissenyar, planificar, organitzar i dur a terme) el canvi i la innovació, tenint en compte especialment els rols dels diferents actors (no només públics) que hi participen. La recerca es recolza en un ampli estudi empíric sobre la Generalitat de Catalunya i en un estudi compartiu internacional sobre el Quebec, Emillia-Romagna i Escòcia.

Predicting random level and seasonality of hotel prices. A structural equation growth curve approach

This article examines the effect on price of different characteristics of holiday hotels in the sun-and-beach segment, under the hedonic function perspective. Monthly prices of the majority of hotels in the Spanish continental Mediterranean coast are gathered from May to October 1999 from the tour operator catalogues. Hedonic functions are specified as random-effect models and parametrized as structural equation models with two latent variables, a random peak season price and a random width of seasonal fluctuations. Characteristics of the hotel and the region where they are located are used as predictors of both latent variables. Besides hotel category, region, distance to the beach, availability of parking place and room equipment have an effect on peak price and also on seasonality. 3- star hotels have the highest seasonality and hotels located in the southern regions the lowest, which could be explained by a warmer climate in autumn

International regimes as knowledge syndicates? Energy and trends of global governance

El poder de l'Estat i la sobirania tradicional s'està deteriorant de manera constant, sobretot en termes de la provisió de certs béns públics fonamentals. Els Estats, en particular, són incapaços de manejar el coneixement i la informació que és essencial per mantenir la competitivitat i la sostenibilitat en una economia interdependent. Estructures fiables de la governança mundial i la cooperació internacional estan lluny de ser establertes. Energia com a problema a les agendes p dels governs, les empreses privades i la societat civil és un exemple manifest d'aquesta dinàmica.. L'actual sistema de governança mundial d'energia implica accions polítiques disperses per actors divers. L'Agència Internacional de l'Energia té un paper destacat, però està debilitat per la seva composició limitada i basada en el coneixement- epistèmic en lloc del material o executiu. Aquest treball sosté que ni la mida ni nombre de membres disponibles estan dificultant la governabilitat mundial d'energia. Més aviat, l'energia és una sèrie de béns públics que es troben als llimbs, on els estats no poden pagar la seva disposició, així com els diversos interessos impedir l'establiment d'una autoritat internacional. Després de la introducció de la teoria del règim internacional i el concepte de coneixement basats en les comunitats epistèmiques, l'article revisa l'estat actual de la governabilitat de l'energia mundia. A continuació es presenta una comparació d'aquesta estructura amb els règims de govern nacional i regional, d'una banda, i amb règims globals ambientals i de salut, de l'altra

EU “actorness” in International Relations: The Non-Proliferation Policy of the EU in the Southern Mediterranean

El punt de partida d'aquesta investigació és una retòrica molt utilitzada que la UE és un actor global. En vista d'això, la no proliferació de la política comunitària al sud de la Mediterrània s'examina. L'estudi es realitza sobre la base de la conceptualització de la UE "actorness" ia través d'alguns criteris (context extern, l'evolució de l'aparell de política exterior de la UE, la Unió Europea l'auto-presentació i la percepció de tercers, la consistència i la disponibilitat d'instruments de política i accions concretes) que involucren tant factors ideacionals i materials, d'acord amb el "pluralisme metodològic". Aquest marc conceptual va ajudar a avaluar la no proliferació de la política comunitària en aquesta regió en particular on la UE té interessos i bones raons per actuar. Cada un dels criteris de manifest els avantatges i desavantatges de la UE "actorness" en aquest camp seleccionat i la caixa. Aquest document sosté que la no proliferació "actorness" de la UE a la regió del sud de la Mediterrània ha estat limitat a causa d'una varietat de raons.

The building blocks of international ecological footprint inequality: a regression-based decomposition

This paper performs an empirical Decomposition of International Inequality in Ecological Footprint in order to quantify to what extent explanatory variables such as a country’s affluence, economic structure, demographic characteristics, climate and technology contributed to international differences in terms of natural resource consumption during the period 1993-2007. We use a Regression-Based Inequality Decomposition approach. As a result, the methodology extends qualitatively the results obtained in standard environmental impact regressions as it comprehends further social dimensions of the Sustainable Development concept, i.e. equity within generations. The results obtained point to prioritizing policies that take into account both future and present generations.

Domestic and International Research Joint Ventures: The Effect of Collusion

We analyze the effect of research joint ventures (RJVs) on consumer welfare in an international context when collusion can occur. The main novelty of our analysis is to study the differentiated effect of domestic and international RJVs. The recent literature shows that RJVs with collusion harm consumers. However, our results introduce a qualifi cation to this statement: international RJVs with collusion might be bene ficial for consumers when internationalization costs are high. The EU and US competition policy advises against RJVs that facilitate collusion on the grounds of their expected negative effects. Our results suggest that antitrust authorities should distinguish between domestic and international RJVs and, in certain cases, be more benevolent with international RJVs. Keywords: collusion; domestic research joint venture; international research joint venture JEL Classi fication Numbers: K21, L24, L44, O32

The Building Blocks of International Ecological Footprint inequality: A Regression-Base Decomposition

This paper performs an empirical Decomposition of International Inequality in Ecological Footprint in order to quantify to what extent explanatory variables such as a country’s affluence, economic structure, demographic characteristics, climate and technology contributed to international differences in terms of natural resource consumption during the period 1993-2007. We use a Regression- Based Inequality Decomposition approach. As a result, the methodology extends qualitatively the results obtained in standard environmental impact regressions as it comprehends further social dimensions of the Sustainable Development concept, i.e. equity within generations. The results obtained point to prioritizing policies that take into account both future and present generations. Keywords: Ecological Footprint Inequality, Regression-Based Inequality Decomposition, Intragenerational equity, Sustainable development.

CO2 emissions embodied in international trade: A multiregional Inputoutput model for Spain

As a result of globalization and free trade agreements, international trade is enormously growing and inevitably putting more pressure on the environment over the last few decades. This has drawn the attention of both environmentalist and economist in response to the ever growing concerns of climate change and urgent need of international action for its mitigation. In this work we aim at analyzing the implication of international trade in terms of CO2 between Spain and its important partners using a multi-regional input-output (MRIO) model. A fully integrated 13 regions MRIO model is constructed to examine the pollution responsibility of Spain both from production and consumption perspectives. The empirical results show that Spain is a net importer of CO2 emissions which is equivalent to 29% of its emission due to production. Even though the leading partner with regard to import values are countries such as Germany, France, Italy and Great Britain, the CO2 embodied due to trade with China takes the largest share. This is mainly due to the importation of energy intensive products from China coupled with Chinese poor energy mix which is dominated by coal-power plant. The largest portion (67%) of the global imported CO2 emissions is due to intermediate demand requirements by production sectors. Products such as Motor vehicles, chemicals, a variety of machineries and equipments, textile and leather products, construction materials are the key imports that drive the emissions due to their production in the respective exporting countries. Being at its peak in 2005, the Construction sector is the most responsible activity behind both domestic and imported emissions.

Overcoming the ethical dilemmas of skilled migration? An analysis of international narratives on the “brain drain”

Migration-related issues have, since approximately 2000, been the object of increased attention at the international level. This has led, among other things, to the production of international narratives, which aim both at understanding migration and at proposing policy recommendations on how to address it, with the objective of improving the governance of migration at the global level. But this implies overcoming dilemmas stemming from the diverging interests of states and other actors (like NGOs and the private sector). This article examines the way in which international migration narratives address skilled migration, which is characterised by some of the clearest political trade-offs between stakeholders. It argues that these narratives attempt to speak to all parties and conciliate contradictory arguments about what should be done, in order to discursively overcome policy dilemmas and create a consensus. While this is line with the mandate of international organizations, it depoliticises migration issues.

On the goodness of fit of Kirk's formula for spread option prices

In this paper we investigate the goodness of fit of the Kirk's approximation formula for spread option prices in the correlated lognormal framework. Towards this end, we use the Malliavin calculus techniques to find an expression for the short-time implied volatility skew of options with random strikes. In particular, we obtain that this skew is very pronounced in the case of spread options with extremely high correlations, which cannot be reproduced by a constant volatility approximation as in the Kirk's formula. This fact agrees with the empirical evidence. Numerical examples are given.

Growth, Democracy, and Civil War

Does economic growth affect the likelihood of civil war? Answering this question requires dealing with reverse causation. Our approach exploits that international commodity prices have a significant effect on the income growth of Sub-Saharan African countries. We show that lower income growth makes civil war more likely in non-democracies. This effect is significantly weaker in democracies; as a result, we find no link between growth and civil war in these countries. Our reducedform results also indicate that lower international commodity price growth has no effect on civil war in democracies, but raises the likelihood of civil war incidence and onset in nondemocracies.

Firm-Specific Investment, Sticky Prices, and the Taylor Principle

According to the Taylor principle a central bank should adjust the nominal interest rate by more than one-for-one in response to changes in current inflation. Most of the existing literature supports the view that by following this simple recommendation a central bank can avoid being a source of unnecessary fluctuations in economic activity. The present paper shows that this conclusion is not robust with respect to the modelling of capital accumulation. We use our insights to discuss the desirability of alternative interest rate rules. Our results suggest a reinterpretation of monetary policy under Volcker and Greenspan: The empirically plausible characterization of monetary policy can explain the stabilization of macroeconomic outcomes observed in the early eighties for the US economy. The Taylor principle in itself cannot.