The impact of FTAs on MENA trade in agricultural and industrial products

This paper analyses the impact of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) on Middle East and North African Countries (MENA) trade for the period 1994-2010. The analysis distinguishes between industrial and agricultural trade to take into account the different liberalisation schedules. An augmented gravity model is estimated using up-to-date panel data techniques to control for all time-invariant bilateral factors that influence bilateral trade as well as for the so-called multilateral resistance factors. We also control for the endogeneity of the agreements and test for self-selection bias due to the presence of zero trade in our sample. The main findings indicate that North-South-FTAs and South-South- FTAs have a differential impact in terms of increasing trade in MENA countries, with the former being more beneficial in terms of exports for MENA countries, but both showing greater global market integration. We also find that FTAs that include agricultural products, in which MENA countries have a clear comparative advantage, have more favourable effects for these countries than those only including industrial products. JEL code: F10, F15

La evolución de la financiación de las comunidades autónomas de régimen común, 2002-2011

En este trabajo se construyen series de financiación a competencias homogéneas e igual esfuerzo fiscal para las comunidades autónomas de régimen común durante el período 2002-11, así como series complementarias de financiación por caja y financiación destinada a competencias singulares. También se recopilan otros agregados de interés que pueden servir para relativizar la financiación autonómica, incluyendo la población ajustada regional. Estas series se utilizan en la segunda parte del trabajo para ilustrar algunos rasgos de interés de la evolución de la financiación agregada regional y de la posición relativa de las distintas comunidades autónomas en términos de financiación por unidad de necesidad.

La financiación autonómica: datos para una negociación complicada

Tras un cierto tira y afloja, el Gobierno ha anunciado que en pocos meses se iniciará el proceso de análisis y negociación que deberá culminar con la reforma del sistema de financiación regional. Trabajando con datos homogeneizados de financiación autonómica, en la presente nota se destacan algunos aspectos de la evolución recient del sistem y de su situación actual que puede ayudar a entender el punto de partida de este proceso y las reivindicaciones de las distintas comunidades.

Earnings quality and performance in the banking industry: a profit frontier approach

The analysis of efficiency and productivity in banking has received a great deal of attention for almost three decades now. However, most of the literature to date has not explicitly accounted for risk when measuring efficiency. We propose an analysis of profit efficiency taking into account how the inclusion of a variety of bank risk measures might bias efficiency scores. Our measures of risk are partly inspired by the literature on earnings management and earnings quality, keeping in mind that loan loss provisions, as a generally accepted proxy for risk, can be adjusted to manage earnings and regulatory capital. We also consider some variants of traditional models of profit efficiency where different regimes are stipulated so that financial institutions can be evaluated in different dimensions—i.e., prices, quantities, or prices and quantities simultaneously. We perform this analysis on the Spanish banking industry, whose institutions have been deeply affected by the current international financial crisis, and where re-regulation is taking place. Our results can be explored in multiple dimensions but, in general, they indicate that the impact of earnings management on profit efficiency is of less magnitude than what might a priori be expected, and that on the whole, savings banks have performed less well than commercial banks. However, savings banks are adapting to the new regulatory scenario and rapidly catching up with commercial banks, especially in some dimensions of performance.

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Article d'opinió sobre les retallades pressupostàries en educació

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Article d'opinió sobre les retallades pressupostàries en educació