Financial Integration, Trade Openness and International Transmission

[cat] Com afecten l’obertura comercial i financera a la volatilitat macroeconòmica? La literatura existent, tant empírica com teòrica, no ha assolit encara un consens. Aquest article usa un model microfonamentat de dos països simètrics amb entrada endògena d’empreses per estudiar-ho. L’anàlisis es du a terme per tres règims econòmics diferents amb diferents nivells d’integració internacional: una economia tancada, una autarquia financera i una integració plena. Es consideren diversos nivells d’obertura comercial, en forma de biaix domèstic de la demanda i l’economia pot patir pertorbacions en la productivitat del treball i en innovació. El model conclou que la incertesa macroeconòmica, representada principalment per la volatilitat del consum, la producció i la relació real d’intercanvi internacional, depèn del grau d’obertura i del tipus de pertorbació.

Growth and externalities across economies : an empirical analysis using spatial econometrics

Recent theoretical models of economic growth have emphasised the role of external effects on the accumulation of factors of production. Although most of the literature has considered the externalities across firms within a region, in this paper we go a step further and consider the possibility that these externalities cross the barriers of regional economies. We assess the role of these external effects in explaining growth and economic convergence. We present a simple growth model, which includes externalities across economies, developing a methodology for testing their existence and estimating their strength. In our view, spatial econometrics is naturally suited to an empirical consideration of these externalities. We obtain evidence on the presence of significant externalities both across Spanish and European regions.

Regional economic dynamics and convergence in the european union

Deepening in the European Union (EU) integration process has enhanced the question of economic disparities at a regional level. Theconvergence process observed until the late seventies was exhausted onwards incoincidence with important changes in the economic activity. The paper showshow these factors would have provoked a regional differenciated response that,despite being important, would have not strengthened the decrease in regionalinequalities. We use an alternative and (in our opinion) richer approach to thetraditional convergence analysis, where the evolution of the whole regionaldistribution is what matters and not that of a representative economy. Moreover,when analysing inequalities among regional economies, the geographical spaceacquire an outstanding role. Hence, we apply spatial association tests and relatethem to the convergence analysis

European integration, FDI and the internal geography of trade : evidence from Western European border regions

In this paper we use a gravity model to study the trade performance of French and Spanishborder regions relatively to non-border regions, over the past two decades. We find that,controlling for their size, proximity and location characteristics, border regions trade onaverage between 62% and 193% more with their neighbouring country than other regions,and twice as much if they are endowed with good cross border transport infrastructures.Despite European integration, however, this trade outperformance has fallen for the mostperipheral regions within the EU. We show that this trend was linked in part to a shift in the propensity of foreign investors to move their affiliates from the regions near their home market to the regions bordering the EU core.

Public health expenditure and spatial interactions in a decentralized national health system

One of the limitations of cross-country health expenditure analysis refers to the fact that the financing, the internal organization and political restraints of health care decision-making are country-specific and heterogeneous. Yet, a potential solution is to examine the influence of such effects in those countries that have undertaken decentralization processes. In such a setting, it is possible to examine potential expenditure spillovers across the geography of a country as well as the influence of the political ideology of regional incumbents on public health expenditure. This paper examines the determinants of public health expenditure within Spanish region-states (Autonomous Communities, ACs), most of them subject to similar financing structures although exhibiting significant heterogeneity as a result of the increasing decentralization, region-specific political factors along with different use of health care inputs, economic dimension and spatial interactions

Monetary integration and the cost of borrowing

With the beginning of the European Monetary Union (EMU), euro-area sovereign securities¿ adjusted spreads over Germany (corrected from the foreign exchange risk) experienced an increase that caused a lower than expected decline in borrowing costs. The objective of this paper is to study what explains that rising. In particular, if it took place a change in the price assigned by markets to domestic (credit risk and/or market liquidity) or to international risk factors. The empirical evidence supports the idea that a change in the market value of liquidity occurred with the EMU. International and default risk play a smaller role

Phase-field approach to spatial perturbations in normal Saffman-Taylor fingers

We make a numerical study of the effect that spatial perturbations have in normal Saffman-Taylor fingers driven at constant pressure gradients. We use a phase field model that allows for spatial variations in the Hele-Shaw cell. We find that, regardless of the specific way in which spatial perturbations are introduced, a lateral instability develops on the sides of the propagating Saffman-Taylor finger. Moreover, the instability exists regardless of the intensity of spatial perturbations in the cell as long as the perturbations are felt by the finger tip. If, as the finger propagates, the spatial perturbations felt by the tip change, the instability is nonperiodic. If, as the finger propagates, the spatial perturbations felt by the tip are persistent, the instability developed is periodic. In the later case, the instability is symmetrical or asymmetrical depending on the intensity of the perturbation.

Spatial correlations and cross sections of clusters in the A + B -> 0 reaction

We consider the distribution of cross sections of clusters and the density-density correlation functions for the A+B¿0 reaction. We solve the reaction-diffusion equations numerically for random initial distributions of reactants. When both reactant species have the same diffusion coefficients the distribution of cross sections and the correlation functions scale with the diffusion length and obey superuniversal laws (independent of dimension). For different diffusion coefficients the correlation functions still scale, but the scaling functions depend on the dimension and on the diffusion coefficients. Furthermore, we display explicitly the peculiarities of the cluster-size distribution in one dimension.

Brane-world creation and black holes

An inflating brane world can be created from ``nothing'' together with its anti-de Sitter (AdS) bulk. The resulting space-time has compact spatial sections bounded by the brane. During inflation, the continuum of KK modes is separated from the massless zero mode by the gap m=(3/2)H, where H is the Hubble rate. We consider the analogue of the Nariai solution and argue that it describes the pair production of ``black cigars'' attached to the inflating brane. In the case when the size of the instantons is much larger than the AdS radius, the 5-dimensional action agrees with the 4-dimensional one. Hence, the 5D and 4D gravitational entropies are the same in this limit. We also consider thermal instantons with an AdS black hole in the bulk. These may be interpreted as describing the creation of a hot universe from nothing or the production of AdS black holes in the vicinity of a pre-existing inflating brane world. The Lorentzian evolution of the brane world after creation is briefly discussed. An additional ``integration constant'' in the Friedmann equation-accompanying a term which dilutes like radiation-describes the tidal force in the fifth direction and arises from the mass of a spherical object inside the bulk. In general, this could be a 5-dimensional black hole or a ``parallel'' brane world of negative tension concentrical with our brane-world. In the case of thermal solutions, and in the spirit of the AdS/CFT correspondence, one may attribute the additional term to thermal radiation in the boundary theory. Then, for temperatures well below the AdS scale, the entropy of this radiation agrees with the entropy of the black hole in the AdS bulk.

Vertical integration or specialisation: producing and commercialising cotton goods (1815-1913)

This article describes the ways in which cotton goods were commercialised during the nineteenth century and the first third of the twentieth. Several national cases are analysed: Britain, as the Workshop of the World; France, Germany, Switzerland and the US, as core economies; and Italy and Spain as countries on the European periphery. The main question that we address is why some cotton industries vertically integrated their production and commercialisation processes, but others did not. We present a model that combines industrial district size and product differentiation to explain why vertical integration was present in most cases and why there was vertical specialisation in Lancashire and Lowell.

Regional integration and specialisation patterns in Spain

The aim of this paper is to analyse how economic integration in Europe has affected industrial geographical concentration in Spain and explain what the driving forces behind industry location are. Firstly, we construct regional specialisation and geographical concentration indices for Spanish 50 provinces and 30 industrial sectors in 1979, 1986 and 1992. Secondly, we carry out an econometric analysis of the determinants of geographical concentration of industries. Our main conclusion is that there is no evidence of increasing specialisation in Spain between 1979 and 1992 and that the most important determinant of Spain¿s economic geography is scale economies. Furthermore, traditional trade theory has no effects in explaining the pattern of industrial concentration

Term structure of interest rates. European financial integration

In this paper we estimate, analyze and compare the term structures of interest rates in six different countries over the period 1992-2004. We apply the Nelson-Siegel model to obtain the term structures of interest rates at weekly intervals. A total of 4,038 curves are estimated and analyzed. Four European Monetary Union countries¿Spain, France, Germany and Italy¿are included. The UK is also included as a European non-member of the Monetary Union. Finally the US completes the analysis. The goal is to determine the differences in the shapes of the term structure of interest rates among these countries. Likewise, we can determine the most usual term structure shapes that appear for each country.*****

Spatial correlations and cross sections of clusters in the A + B -> 0 reaction

We consider the distribution of cross sections of clusters and the density-density correlation functions for the A+B¿0 reaction. We solve the reaction-diffusion equations numerically for random initial distributions of reactants. When both reactant species have the same diffusion coefficients the distribution of cross sections and the correlation functions scale with the diffusion length and obey superuniversal laws (independent of dimension). For different diffusion coefficients the correlation functions still scale, but the scaling functions depend on the dimension and on the diffusion coefficients. Furthermore, we display explicitly the peculiarities of the cluster-size distribution in one dimension.

Spatial patterns mediated by subcritical and supercritical thermal fluctuations in the splay Fréedericksz transition

The magnetically induced splay Fréedericksz transition is reexamined to look for pattern forming phenomena slightly above or below criticality. By using our traditional scheme of stochastic nematodynamic equations, situations are, respectively, found of transient and permanent predominance of transversal periodicities (wave numbers) along the direction perpendicular to the initial orientation within the sample. The relevance of these predictions in relation with recent observations in the electrically driven splay Fréedericksz transition, and in general with other pattern forming phenomena, is stressed.

European integration, FDI and the internal geography of trade : evidence from Western European border regions

In this paper we use a gravity model to study the trade performance of French and Spanishborder regions relatively to non-border regions, over the past two decades. We find that,controlling for their size, proximity and location characteristics, border regions trade onaverage between 62% and 193% more with their neighbouring country than other regions,and twice as much if they are endowed with good cross border transport infrastructures.Despite European integration, however, this trade outperformance has fallen for the mostperipheral regions within the EU. We show that this trend was linked in part to a shift in the propensity of foreign investors to move their affiliates from the regions near their home market to the regions bordering the EU core.