De la mano de Keynes: "A tract on monetary reform"

En Tract on Monetary Reform, John Maynard Keynes propuso utilizar la base monetaria y el coeficiente de reserva bancaria como variables instrumentales d¿una política monetaria que había sido considerada hasta entonces innecesaria. En este trabajo se intenta desvelar las primeras contribuciones de Keynes al progreso del análisis económico

Viabilidad del sistema de pensiones y reformas por el lado de los ingresos: una aproximación intergeneracional

Este artículo, mediante el método de la Contabilidad Generacional, examina la viabilidad a largo plazo y los efectos sobre la redistribución intergeneracional de la renta del sistema de pensiones español. Dado la enorme deuda acumulada, que se traslada a las generaciones futuras, se explora la posibilidad de introducir políticas de reforma por el lado de los ingresos que pretenden mitigar la fuerte dependencia demográfica de las finanzas de la Seguridad Social. El principal resultado obtenido es que la gravedad de la crisis demográfica hace que estos tipos de medidas estudiadas sean claramente insuficientes para restaurar el equilibrio intergeneracional.

The geographical concentration of industry across Spanish Regions, 1856-1995

New economic geography models show that there may be a strong relationship between economic integration and the geographical concentration of industries. Nevertheless, this relationship is neither unique nor stable, and may follow a ?-shaped pattern in the long term. The aim of the present paper is to analyze the evolution of the geographical concentration of manufacturing across Spanish regions during the period 1856-1995. We construct several geographical concentration indices for different points in time over these 140 years. The analysis is carried out at two levels of aggregation, in regions corresponding to the NUTS-II and NUTS-III classifications. We confirm that the process of economic integration stimulated the geographical concentration of industrial activity. Nevertheless, the localization coefficients only started to fall after the beginning of the integration of the Spanish Economy into the international markets in the mid-70s, and this new path was not interrupted by Spain¿s entry in the European Union some years later

Transitional effects of a pension system change in Spain

This paper studies the output effects, transition costs and the change in pension benefits derived from the substitution of the current unfunded pension system by a fully funded pension system financed through mandatory savings.These effects are estimated by using reduced versions of the neoclassical and endogenous growth frameworks. Because of the greater capital accumulation during the transition phase, final output increases by 23,6% (neoclassicalframework); and a 24,5-31,5% (endogenous growth framework). The initial revenue loss for the government would represent a 4,8% of the GDP, raising very slowly during the transition period. Given the new growth rates, rates of return ofphysical capital, and financial intermediation costs, we have that the capitalization pension benefits obtained by all 30-contribution-year worker would be more than twice than those that guarantee the financial sustainability of thepublic pension system

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

Obesity and the incidence of chronic diseases: a seemingly unrelated probit approach

Western societies can reduce avoidable mortality and morbidity by better understanding the relationship between obesity and chronic disease. This paper examines the joint determinants of obesity and of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and elevated cholesterol. It analyzes a broadly representative Spanish dataset, the 1999 Survey on Disabilities, Impairments and Health Status, using a health production theoretical framework together with a seemingly unrelated probit model approach that controls for unobserved heterogeneity and endogeneity. Its findings provide suggestive evidence of a positive and significant, although specification-dependent, association between obesity and the prevalence of chronic illness

Beyond the Toledo agreement : the intergenerational impact of the spanish pension reform

The paper examines the intergenerational impact of the Spanish public pension system after the 1997 Pension Reform Act. Working within a Generational Accounting framework, we find that maintaining the new legal setting could leave future generations with liabilities as high as 176 percent of base year GDP. As the recent reform measures have been insufficient to achieve the sustainability of the current pension system, we also analyse the impact of alternative reform strategies. Within the current pay-as-you-go setting, a further improvement to tax-benefit linkage in line with the original spirit of the Toledo Agreement is shown to yield and intergenerationally more balanced outcome,than an increase in the retirement age or an expansion of public subsidies financed through indirect taxes. Finally, we examine the generational impact of a move toward a partially funded pension system which might restore theintergenerational balance

Potencial de mercado y estructura espacial de los salarios en las regiones españolas, 1955-1995

En este artículo se examina la relación existente entre los salarios de las regiones españolas y su potencial de mercado en el período 1955-1995. Se prueba la existencia de una estructura espacial de los salarios, en la que los salarios disminuyen al alejarnos de las regiones de renta elevada. Este resultado refuerza la hipótesis de la existencia de una dinámica aglomerativa en España durante la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Sin embargo, el efecto del potencial de mercado sobre los salarios disminuye en la segunda parte del período (1975-1995). Este resultado es consistente con la apertura de una senda de dispersión en la localización de la actividad industrial a partir de mediados de los setenta

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

Willigness to pay for long-term care coverage: the role of private information and self-insurance

Both public and private insurance for long-term care is undeveloped in some European countries such as in Spain and empirical evidence is still limited. This paper aims at exmining the determinants of the demand for Long Term Care (LTC) coverage in Spain using contingent valuation techniques. Our findings indicate that only one-fifth of the population is willing to pay to assure coverage decisions are significantly affected by private information asymmetry and housing tenure in giving rise to self-insurance reduces the probability of insurance being hypothetically purchased.

Were Spanish migrants attracted by industrial agglomerations?: an analysis for the interwar years in the light of the new economic geography

In this paper we examine whether access to markets had a significant influence onmigration choices of Spanish internal migrants in the inter-war years. We perform astructural contrast of a New Economic Geography model that focus on the forwardlinkage that links workers location choice with the geography of industrial production,one of the centripetal forces that drive agglomeration in the NEG models. The resultshighlight the presence of this forward linkage in the Spanish economy of the inter-warperiod. That is, we prove the existence of a direct relation between workers¿ localizationdecisions and the market potential of the host regions. In addition, the direct estimationof the values associated with key parameters in the NEG model allows us to simulatethe migratory flows derived from different scenarios of the relative size of regions andthe distances between them. We show that in Spain the power of attraction of theagglomerations grew as they increased in size, but the high elasticity estimated for themigration costs reduced the intensity of the migratory flows. This could help to explainthe apparently low intensity of internal migrations in Spain until its upsurge during the1920s. This also explains the geography of migrations in Spain during this period,which hardly affected the regions furthest from the large industrial agglomerations (i.e.,regions such as Andalusia, Estremadura and Castile-La Mancha) but had an intenseeffect on the provinces nearest to the principal centres of industrial development.

Eliciting preferences for collectively financed health programmes : the "willingness to assign" approach

Improving public involvement in health system decision making stands as a primary goal in health systems reform. However, still limited evidence is found on how best to elicit preferences for health care programs. This paper examines a contingent choice technique to elicit preferences among health programs so called, willingness to assign (WTAS): Moreover, we elicited contingents rankings as well as the willingness to pay extra taxes for comparative purposes. We argue that WTAS reveals relative ( monetary-based) values of a set of competing public programmes under a hypothetical healthcare budget assessment. Experimental evidence is reported from a delibertive empirical study valuing ten health programmes in the context of the Catalan Health Services. Evidence from a our experimental study reveals that perferences are internally more consistent and slightly less affected by "preference reversals" as compared to values revealed from the willingness to pay (WTP) extra taxes approach. Consistent with prior studies, we find that the deliberative approach helped to avoid possible misunderstandings. Interestingly, although programmes promoting health received the higher relative valuation, those promoting other health benefits also ranked highly

National Identity and the Preference for State Opting-Out in the Basque Country

We argue that preferences for secession are the expression of a common unobserved mechanisms determining national identity. This paper examines the hypothesis of independence of both preferences for secession (independent Euskadi) and Basque national identity in the light of Akerloff and Kranton (2000). We deal with psychological determinants of individuals' national identity formation as well as those that influence the propensity of individuals to support the secession of their perceived ¿imagined community¿ or nation.. We undertake econometric survey analysis for the Basque Country using a bivariate probit model and publicly available data from the Spanish Centre for Sociological Research. Our results provide robust evidence of a common determination of national identity and political preferences for the secession of the Basque Country consistently with Akerloff and Kranton model.

The Impact of Monetary Union on EU-15 Sovereign Debt Yield Spreads

With European Monetary Union (EMU), there was an increase in the adjusted spreads (corrected from the foreign exchange risk) of euro participating countries' sovereign securities over Germany and a decrease in those of non-euro countries. The objective of this paper is to study the reasons for this result, and in particular, whether the change in the price assigned by markets was due to domestic factors such as credit risk and/or market liquidity, or to international risk factors. The empirical evidence suggests that market size scale economies have increased since EMU for all European markets, so the effect of the various risk factors, even though it differs between euro and non-euro countries, is always dependent on the size of the market.