The evolution of tax morale in modern Spain

This paper studies the evolution of tax morale in Spain in the post-France era. In contrast to the previous tax compliance literature, the current paper investigates tax morale as the dependent variable and attempts to answer what actually shapes tax morale. Te analysis uses suevey data from two sources; the World Values Survey and the European Values Survey, allowing us to observe tax morale in Spain for the years 1981,1990, 1995 and 1999/2000. The sutudy of evolution of tax morale in Spain over nearly a 20-year span is particularly interesting because the political and fiscal system evolved very rapidly during this period.

Networking of shear zones at the brittle-to-viscous transition (Cap de Creus, NE Spain)

A crustal-scale shear zone network at the fossil brittle-to-viscous transition exposed at Cap de Creus, NE Spain evolved by coeval fracturing and viscous, mylonitic overprinting of an existing foliation. Initial fracturing led to mylonitic shearing as rock softened in ductilely deformed zones surrounding the fractures. Mylonitic shear zones widened by lateral branching of fractures from these shear zones and by synthetic rotation of the existing foliation between the fractures and shear zones. Shear zones lengthened by a combination of fracturing and mylonitic shearing in front of the shear zone tips. Shear zones interconnected along and across their shearing planes, separating rhomb-shaped lozenges of less deformed rock. Lozenges were subsequently incorporated into the mylonitic shear zones by widening in the manner described above. In this way, deformation became homogeneous on the scale of initial fracturing (metre- to decametre-scale). In contrast, the shear zone network represents localisation of strain on a decametre-length scale. The strength of the continental crust at the time of coeval fracturing and viscous shearing is inferred to have decreased with time and strain, as fracturing evolved to mylonitic shearing, and as the shear zones coalesced to form a through-going network subparallel to the shearing plane. Crustal strength must therefore be considered as strain- and scale-dependent.

Community Pharmacies and the Needs of Mobile EU Citizens - A study on Finns living in Spain

Migration within the European Union (EU) has increased since the Union was established. Community pharmacies provide open access to health care services and can be the first, most frequently used or even the only contact with a nation s health care system among mobile community residents. In some of the mass-migration areas in Southern Europe, most of the customers may represent mobile citizens of foreign background. This has not always been taken into consideration in the development of community pharmacy services. Mobile patients have been on the EU's health policy agenda, but they have seldom been mentioned in the context of community pharmacies. In most of the EU member states, governments control the specific legislation concerning community pharmacies and there is no harmonised pharmaceutical policy or consistent minimal standards for community pharmacy services in the EU. The aim of this study was to understand medication use, the role of community pharmacies and the symptom mitigation process of mobile community residents. Finns living in Spain were used as an example to examine how community pharmacies in a EU member state meet the needs of mobile community residents. The data were collected by a survey in 2002 (response rate 53%, n= 533) and by five focus group discussions in 2006 (n=30). A large number (70%) of the respondents had moved to Spain for health reasons and suffered from chronic morbidity. Community pharmacies had an important role in the healthcare of mobile community residents and the respondents were mostly satisfied with these services. However, several medication safety risks related to community pharmacy practices were identified: 1) Availability of prescription medicines without prescription (e.g., antibiotics, sleeping pills, Viagra®, asthma medications, cardiovascular medicines, psoriasis medicines and analgesics); 2) Irrational use of medicines (e.g., 41% of antibiotic users had bought their antibiotics without a prescription, and the most common reasons for antibiotic self-medication were symptomatic common colds and sore throats); 3) Language barriers between patients and pharmacy professionals; 4) Lack of medication counselling; 5) Unqualified pharmacy personnel providing pharmacotherapy. A fifth of the respondents reported experiencing problems during pharmacy visits in Spain, and the lack of a common language was the source of most of these problems. The findings of this study indicate that regulations and their enforcement can play a crucial role in actually assuring the rational and safe use of medicines. These results can be used in the development of pharmaceutical and healthcare policies in the EU. It is important to define consistent minimum standards for community pharmacy services in the EU. Then, the increasing number of mobile community residents could access safe and high quality health care services, including community pharmacy services, in every member state within the EU.

Variability in exposure to ambient ultrafine particles in urban schools: Comparative assessment between Australia and Spain

Ambient ultrafine particle number concentrations (PNC) have inhomogeneous spatio-temporal distributions and depend on a number of different urban factors, including background conditions and distant sources. This paper quantitatively compares exposure to ambient ultrafine particles at urban schools in two cities in developed countries, with high insolation climatic conditions, namely Brisbane (Australia) and Barcelona (Spain). The analysis used comprehensive indoor and outdoor air quality measurements at 25 schools in Brisbane and 39 schools in Barcelona. PNC modes were analysed with respect to ambient temperature, land use and urban characteristics, combined with the measured elemental carbon concentrations, NOx (Brisbane) and NO2 (Barcelona). The trends and modes of the quantified weekday average daily cycles of ambient PNC exhibited significant differences between the two cities. PNC increases were observed during traffic rush hours in both cases. However, the mid-day peak was dominant in Brisbane schools and had the highest contribution to total PNC for both indoors and outdoors. In Barcelona, the contribution from traffic was highest for ambient PNC, while the mid-day peak had a slightly higher contribution for indoor concentrations. Analysis of the relationships between PNC and land use characteristics in Barcelona schools showed a moderate correlation with the percentage of road network area and an anti-correlation with the percentage of green area. No statistically significant correlations were found for Brisbane. Overall, despite many similarities between the two cities, school-based exposure patterns were different. The main source of ambient PNC at schools was shown to be traffic in Barcelona and mid-day new particle formation in Brisbane. The mid-day PNC peak in Brisbane could have been driven by the combined effect of background and meteorological conditions, as well as other local/distant sources. The results have implications for urban development, especially in terms of air quality mitigation and management at schools.

Does Immigration Raise Natives’ Income? National and Regional Evidence from Spain

How immigration affects the labor market of the host country is a topic of major concern for many immigrant-receiving nations. Spain is no exception following the rapid increase in immigrant flows experienced over the past decade. We assess the impact of immigration on Spanish natives’ income by estimating the net immigration surplus accruing at the national level and at high immigrant-receiving regions while taking into account the imperfect substitutability of immigrant and native labor. Specifically, using information on the occupational densities of immigrants and natives of different skill levels, we develop a mapping of immigrant-to-native self-reported skills that reveals the combination of natives across skills that would be equivalent to an immigrant of a given self-reported skill level, which we use to account for any differences between immigrant self-reported skill levels and their effective skills according to the Spanish labor market. We find that the immigrant surplus amounts to 0.04 percent of GDP at the national level and it is even higher for some of the main immigrant-receiving regions, such as Cataluña, Valencia, Madrid, and Murcia.

Artículo "Now it can beftold. From our Spain correspondent" publicado en "The Economist". Trata del bombardeo de Gernika y el estado de la investigación.

Fecha: 26-4-1975 / Unidad de instalación: Carpeta 48 - Expediente 7-3 / Nº de pág.: 1 (mecanografiada)

The Impact of Firm Level Contracting on Wage Levels and Inequality: Spain 1995-2002

This paper provides microeconomic evidence on the variation over time of the firm-specific wage premium in Spain from 1995 to 2002, and its impact on wage inequality. We make use of two waves of a detailed linked employer-employee data set. In addition, a new data set with financial information on firms is used for 2002 to control as flexibly as possible for differences in the performance of firms (aggregated at industry level). To our knowledge, there is no microeconomic evidence on the dynamics of the firm-specific wage premium for Spain or for any other country with a similar institutional setting. Our results suggest that there is a clear tendency towards centralization in the collective bargaining process in Spain over this seven-year period, that the firm-level contract wage premium undergoes a substantial decrease, particularly for women, and finally that the "centralization" observed in the collective bargaining process has resulted in a slight decrease in wage inequality.

Labor Market Assimilation of Recent Immigrants in Spain

Revised: 2006-11.-- Published as an article in: British Journal of Industrial Relations, June 2007, vol. 45, issue 2, pp. 257-284.

Ceilings and Floors? Gender Wage Gaps by Education in Spain

Revised: 2006-11.-- Published as an article in: Journal of Population Economics, 2007, vol. 21 issue 3, pp. 751-776.

Population age structure and private consumption in Spain

In this paper we study the effect of population age distribution upon private consumption expenditure in Spain from 1964 to 1997 using aggregate data. We obtain four main results. First, changes in the population pyramid have substantial effects upon the behaviour of private consumption. Second, the pattern of the coefficients of the demographic variables is not consistent with the simplest version of the life cycle hypothesis. Third, we estimate the impact of the demographic transition upon consumption and find positive values associated with episodes in which the shares of groups of individuals with expenditure levels higher (lower) than the mean increased (decreased). Fourth, the results are robust to alternative specifications for the population age distribution.

Unemployment rates and population changes in Spain

Published as an article in: Journal of Applied Economics, 2004, vol. VII, pages 47-76.

Career Planning in Spain: Do temporary contracts delay marriage and motherhood?

The aim of this paper is to find an empirical connection between the impressive increase in the use of temporary contracts in Spain and the observed increase in age at marriage and maternity. Using a pool of the six available waves of individual information from the European Household Panel for Spain, we find that holding temporary contracts rather than permanent ones delays marriage for males, but not for females. Concerning maternity, the labor market situation of both members of the household affects entry into motherhood. In particular, if woman has a temporary contract rather than a permanent one, motherhoods is delayed independently of the husband's contract. As expected, postponement of maternity is not found for non-working women. These results give strong support to the career planning, motive to delay maternity in Spain, given that an unstable labor market situation of female workers is found to be the main deterrent to entry into motherhood.

Evaluation of the conventional surveying equipment applied to deformation analysis of heritage buildings. A case study: the bell tower of Santa María la Blanca church in Agoncillo (La Rioja, Spain)

Contributed to: "Measuring the Changes": 13th FIG International Symposium on Deformation Measurements and Analysis; 4th IAG Symposium on Geodesy for Geotechnical and Structural Enginering (Lisbon, Portugal, May 12-15, 2008).