Water quality as a limiting factor: Concepts and applications for the Mid-Ebro valley

The particular characteristics of the soil, the climate and the distrubution of water amongst the different types of use, all result in a specific problem for the management of the water resource in the arid and semi-arid areas of Spain, making it necessary to redefine tha notions of consumption, efficiency of use and water supply in accordance with new criteria that take the different qualities into account. This, in turn, leads to new meanings being given to terms such as scarcity, water deficit, etc. Within this framework, the objetive of the paper is twofold: first, to propose new concepts and measures that include qualitative aspects; secondly, to psesent an empirical approximation of these concepts, based on the water and socio-economic data for tha mid-Ebro Valley region of Northern Spain. Keywords: Water Economics, Water supply, Water management.

Industrial leadership in science-based Industries: a co-evolution model

In this paper, we seek to analyse the role of national university systems in combination with technological and market factors as sources of industrial leadership and industry growth in sciencebased industries. We propose a model in which national university systems and their respective national firms and industries are considered as co-evolving. National firms compete on a worldwide level and they rely on the progress of science and the availability of scientists to innovate. As the global industry develops, firms try to mold their national university systems, but they achieve different degrees of success. Apart from highlighting the role of institutional responsiveness as a source of competitive advantage, our model points to the access to essential inputs for production, the technological and strategic characteristics of firms, the international diffusion of knowledge, and the initial distribution of market demand as key sources of leadership and industry growth. The international mobility of scientists seems to foster the emergence of industrial leadership shifts

Electricity sector in Spain: Challenges and approach to its modelization in Economics

La tesis doctoral titulada “Electricity sector in Spain: Challenges and approach to its modelization in Economics” trata sobre el sector eléctrico en España cubriendo varios aspectos. El primero de ellos es el estudio en profundidad del sector y el análisis de diferentes tarifas eléctricas y cómo éstas afectan a los costes de la agricultura de regadío. Se hace especial hincapié en tratar de proponer mejoras y se analiza un caso concreto, una tarifa verde francesa y cómo con ella se reducirían los costes en el regadío. También se estudian las relaciones entre subsectores eléctricos (diferentes tecnologías de producción, transporte, distribución y comercialización) y el resto de sectores y variables de la economía usando un modelo input-output desagregado. Finalmente, se utiliza un modelo de equilibrio general aplicado para analizar los efectos de algunas políticas fijadas por la Unión Europea para el sector eléctrico español.<br /

Impacto socioeconomico y ambiental de la nueva PAC. repercusiones sobre la agricultura de regadio en los Monegros (Aragon)

La politica Agraria Comun (PAC) desde su origen ha sufrido profundos cambios para hacer frente a nuevos desafios, pasando de una politica proteccionista de precios, que pretendia el aumento de la productividad, a una politica que tiene como objetivo el desarrollo sostenible y el respecto al medio ambiente. Este trabajo trata de analizar el impacto economico social y ambiental de la PAC sobre la agricultura de reagdio, specialmente sobre los cultivos herbaceos. En concreto, se analiza como influye la reciente reforma de la PAC, principalmente el desacoplamiento de las ayudas, en el sistemas productivo, la renta, el consumo de ague, el uso de nitrato y el nivel de empleo. Se han establecido seis escenarios futuros de la PAC con el objectivo de estudiar las repercusiones que estos tendrian sobre estos temas. Para alcanzar este objectivo se ha optado por la realizacion de simulacioens a traves de un modelo de programacion matematica, desarrollado dentro del paradigma de la Decision Multicriterio, concretamente el metodo NISE. la metodologia propuesta se ha puesto en practica en la comarca de los Monegros (Aragon). Los resultados obtenidos demuestran la importancia del desacoplamiento parcial de las ayudas en la agricultura de regadio en cuanto a satisfaccion de los objectivos economicos sociales y ambientales...The common Agricultural Policy (CAP), has deeply changed from a protectionist price policy, that tries to increase the productivity, to a policy that aims the sustainable development and the protection of the environment. The present study tries to analyze the economic, social and environmental impact of the CAP on the irrigated agriculture, specially on the field crops. In this way, it is analysed how the recent reform of the CAP, in particular the influence of the single payment on the productive system, the farm income, the water consumption, the use of nitrate and on the level of employment. It has been established six future scenarios of the CAP to study the repercussions on these issues. To reach this objective the study has opted to implement simulations through mathematical programming models, developed within the Multiple Criteria Decision making paradigm especially the NISE method. The proposed methodology has been practiced in the Monegros region (Aragon). The obtained results show the importance of the single payment partially decoupled in the irrigated agriculture in the satisfaction of social environmental and economic objectives

Influencia social y sostenibilidad en el uso de recursos renovables

En este trabajo presentamos un modelo en el que las actividades extractivas referidas a un recurso natural renovable, si son abusivas, generan algún tipo de reacción social que modifica las preferencias sociales. Esta modificación es tenida en cuenta por el planificador a la hora de decidir cual es la asignación intertemporal óptima entre consumo y stock del recurso. Bajo estas nuevas condiciones, nos preguntamos cómo cambia el stock del recurso natural en el estado estacionario y qué puede decirse acerca de la posibilidad de sobreexplotación en comparación con los modelos tradicionales en los que no se considera reacción social. Los resultados obtenidos muestran que bajo estas nuevas condiciones el stock del estado estacionario aumenta y el comportamiento de la economía se vuelve más conservacionista, disminuyendo el riesgo de sobreexplotación del recurso Palabras clave: Recursos Renovables, Sostenibilidad, Información Ambiental, Sobreexplotación SOCIAL INFLUENCE AND SUSTAINABILITY IN THE USE OF RENEWABLE RESOURCES Abstract In this paper we present a model in which we show that if the withdrawal activities referring to a renewable resource are abusive, they generate a social reaction of some kind that changes the social preferences. This change is taken into account by the social planner in deciding the optimal allocation between consumption and stock of the resource. Given these new conditions we ask how the stock of the resource in the steady state changes and what can be deduced about the chance of overuse of the resource. At the same time we compare these results to the ones obtained with traditional models which did not take social reactions into account. The conclusions obtained show that with these new conditions the stock of the steady state increases and the economy behavior becomes more conservative, diminishing the chance of overuse of the resource

The Economic Impacts of Newly Irrigated Areas in the Ebro Valley

This paper uses regional input-output tables to analyse the long-term impact resulting from the implementation of the newly irrigated areas provided for under the terms of the Ebro Basin Hydrological Plan. We have described the whole process by way of two consecutive stages. In the first, where the final demand is fixed, we use a demand-driven input-output model and we incorporate technical change through the reduction of the coefficients. In the second, the output of all sectors increases, with the increases in the vector of output being proportional to the forward linkages vector of the Agriculture sector. In this stage, our objective is to obtain a final demand vector that ensures that the agricultural value added increases to a prescribed value of v 1 *. Whilst the results demonstrate the positive effects of the transformation, they also reveal effects of a very different character in each sector. Thus, the Agriculture, Livestock and Agri-food industry sectors show significant increases in their gross outputs caused by the forward effects, whilst the Energy, Metal and Chemicals sectors reduce their outputs. These results shed light on the contradictory nature of the processes of development and technical change.Input-OUTPUT Model, Technical Change, Agricultural Linkages, Economic Impact,