The spatial shift-share analysis - new developments and some findings for the Spanish case

The main feature of shift-share analysis is, according to Dunn (1960), the computation of geographical shifts in economic activity. Nevertheless, the traditional shift-share approach does not include explicitly the interaction between the considered spatial units (countries, municipalities, regions, etc) since each of these units is considered to be independent with respect to the others. The consideration of the spatial dependence was suggested by some authors who recognized that the decomposed effects are not spatially independent. Nazara y Hewings (2002, 2004) take up this idea again and implement a new shift-share model based on the existence of spatial dependence between the geographic units by means of the definition of a spatial weight matrix. In this paper a comparative analysis of the different models is carried out. The obtained conclusions are also illustrated with some empirical applications related to municipalities.

The evolution of the employment in the European Union. A stochastic shift and share approach

The employment is a main economic variable whose evolution has shown different dynamics within the European Union. Recent papers have recovered the significance of the sectoral factors in the explanation of the regional growth. In this sense, shift and share analysis has been considered an extremely useful technique and a standardization procedure has been developed to decompose the regional growth into three components: the national effect, the industry-mix effect and the competitive effect. Although shift and share analysis has been widely used in the explanation of the differences of growth between regions, this method has been criticized since its classical formulation does not allow to test hypotheses. Therefore, stochastic models have been developed as an extension of classical shift and share analysis, allowing the implementation of inferential processes and forecasting tools. The aim of this paper is to analyze the recent evolution of the employment in the European Union, developing a stochastic shift and share model and testing the sources of regional and sectoral differences.

Defining Scenarios through shift - share models. An Application to the regional employment

The analysis of different economic situations and risk factors is necessary in order to properly define forecasting scenarios. In this paper we focus on the shift-share model as a useful tool in the definition of economic scenarios, based on the different components that contribute to the change of a given economic magnitude (the so called national, sectoral and competitive effects). Although the most commonly used methodology is based on the “constant shift” and the “constant share” hypotheses, additional options can be considered based on the expected behaviour of the competitive effect, thus leading to more realistic scenarios. Once these new options are developed, this approach is applied to the definition of scenarios for the future evolution of the regional employment.

On the determinants of local tax rates: new evidence from Spain

This paper studies the determinants of local tax rates. For the two main local taxes in Spain - the property tax and the motor vehicle tax - we test the existence of tax mimicking, yardstick competition and political trends in a sample of 2,713 municipalities. Using different spatial models, the results support the hypothesis of tax mimicking, with coefficients over 0.40. We also show the relevance of political variables such as the ideology of the incumbents and political fragmentation. The fact that incumbents with weaker political support display stronger mimicking behaviour is interpreted as evidence in favour of yardstick competition. Finally, we find incumbents mimic neighbouring municipalities ruled by the same political party, confirming the political trends hypothesis

important is access to employment offices in Spain? An urban and non-urban perspective

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effect of the accessibility to employment offices on local unemployment rates according to the distribution of three different types of municipalities: large urban, small urban and non-urban. We built a new accessibility measure taking into account the number of employment offices together with the distance and size of their catchment area. We propose an empirical model with spatial regimes that allows including simultaneously spatial heterogeneity and spatial autocorrelation. The results suggest that the accessibility to employment offices is especially important in non-urban areas where employment opportunities are limited. Employment services are important because bridge the gap between unemployed workers and employers where job opportunities are unclear

La innovación y el desarrollo tecnológico en la política regional de la unión europea, 2000-2006. Un análisis de las regiones menos desarrolladas

El “triángulo del conocimiento” formado por investigación-educación-innovación está en la base de los esfuerzos europeos para lograr los ambiciosos objetivos de la Estrategia de Lisboa: convertir a la economía de la Unión Europea (UE) en la “economía basada en el conocimiento más competitiva y dinámica del mundo”. La UE aplica diferentes políticas para alcanzar estos objetivos, entre las cuales se encuentra la política de cohesión económica y social. Esta se dirige a reducir las disparidades entre las regiones europeas, especialmente promoviendo el crecimiento de las regiones menos desarrolladas y de todas aquellas que experimentan serios cambios estructurales. El ámbito del estudio que aquí se presenta son precisamente las regiones menos desarrolladas de la UE-15 (antes de la ampliación hacia el Este de Europa), prestando una especial atención a las de España y Portugal. Para estas regiones se analizan los programas operativos de los Fondos Estructurales correspondientes al último periodo de programación finalizado: 2000-2006. El objetivo del trabajo es evaluar el impacto del esfuerzo realizado en la creación y mejora de capacidades regionales de investigación e innovación, incluyendo las nuevas TICs, sobre el crecimiento económico regional. Pero el desarrollo de la sociedad del conocimiento no es la única partida de gasto contemplada en los programas operativos de desarrollo regional analizados, por lo que se estudiará el peso de los distintos ejes de actuación, entre los que se incluyen, la mejora de la competitividad, especialmente de las PYMEs, la protección del medio ambiente, la inversión en infraestructuras de transporte y energía y el desarrollo local y urbano o rural

Genetic variants in PARP1 (rs3219090) and IRF4 (rs12203592) genes associated with melanoma susceptibility in a Spanish population

Background Few high penetrance genes are known in Malignant Melanoma (MM), however, the involvement of low-penetrance genes such as MC1R, OCA2, ASIP, SLC45A2 and TYR has been observed. Lately, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been the ideal strategy to identify new common, low-penetrance susceptibility loci. In this case–control study, we try to validate in our population nine melanoma associated markers selected from published GWAS in melanoma predisposition. Methods We genotyped the 9 markers corresponding to 8 genes (PARP1, MX2, ATM, CCND1, NADSYN1, CASP8, IRF4 and CYP2R1) in 566 cases and 347 controls from a Spanish population using KASPar probes. Genotypes were analyzed by logistic regression and adjusted by phenotypic characteristics. Results We confirm the protective role in MM of the rs3219090 located on the PARP1 gene (p-value 0.027). Additionally, this SNP was also associated with eye color (p-value 0.002). A second polymorphism, rs12203592, located on the IRF4 gene was associated with protection to develop MM for the dominant model (p-value 0.037). We have also observed an association of this SNP with both lentigines (p-value 0.014) and light eye color (p-value 3.76 × 10-4). Furthermore, we detected a novel association with rs1485993, located on the CCND1 gene, and dark eye color (p-value 4.96 × 10-4). Finally, rs1801516, located on the ATM gene, showed a trend towards a protective role in MM similar to the one firstly described in a GWAS study. Conclusions To our knowledge, this is the first time that these SNPs have been associated with MM in a Spanish population. We confirmed the proposed role of rs3219090, located on the PARP1 gene, and rs12203592, located on the IRF4 gene, as protective to MM along the same lines as have previous genome-wide associated works. Finally, we have seen associations between IRF4, PARP1, and CCND1 and phenotypic characteristics, confirming previous results for the IRF4 gene and presenting novel data for the last two, suggesting that pigmentation characteristics correlated with eye color are potential mediators between PARP1 and MM protection

Multi-Omics Integration Highlights the Role of Ubiquitination in CCl4-Induced Liver Fibrosis

Liver fibrosis is the excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix proteins that occurs in chronic liver disease. Ubiquitination is a post-translational modification that is crucial for a plethora of physiological processes. Even though the ubiquitin system has been implicated in several human diseases, the role of ubiquitination in liver fibrosis remains poorly understood. Here, multi-omics approaches were used to address this. Untargeted metabolomics showed that carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-induced liver fibrosis promotes changes in the hepatic metabolome, specifically in glycerophospholipids and sphingolipids. Gene ontology analysis of public deposited gene array-based data and validation in our mouse model showed that the biological process “protein polyubiquitination” is enriched after CCl4-induced liver fibrosis. Finally, by using transgenic mice expressing biotinylated ubiquitin (bioUb mice), the ubiquitinated proteome was isolated and characterized by mass spectrometry in order to unravel the hepatic ubiquitinated proteome fingerprint in CCl4-induced liver fibrosis. Under these conditions, ubiquitination appears to be involved in the regulation of cell death and survival, cell function, lipid metabolism, and DNA repair. Finally, ubiquitination of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) is induced during CCl4-induced liver fibrosis and associated with the DNA damage response (DDR). Overall, hepatic ubiquitome profiling can highlight new therapeutic targets for the clinical management of liver fibrosis.This work was supported by grants from Gobierno Vasco-Departamento de Salud 2013111114 (to M.L.M.-C.), ELKARTEK 2016, Departamento de Industria del Gobierno Vasco (to M.L.M.-C.), Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades MICINN: SAF2017-87301-R, SAF2017-88041-R, RTI2018-096759-A-100 and SAF2016-76898-P integrado en el Plan Estatal de Investigación Cientifica y Técnica y Innovación, cofinanciado con Fondos FEDER (to M.L.M.-C., J.M.M., T.C.D. and U.M. respectively); AECC Bizkaia (M.S.-M.); Asociación Española contra el Cáncer (T.C.D.), Fundación Científica de la Asociación Española Contra el Cancer (AECC Scientific Foundation) Rare Tumor Calls 2017 (to M.L.M., J.M.B., M.A.A., J.J.G.M.), La Caixa Foundation Program (to M.L.M.), 2018 BBVA Foundation Grants for Scientific Research Teams (to M.L.M.-C.). This research was also funded by the CIBERehd (EHD15PI05/2016) and “Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias, Instituto de Salud Carlos III”, Spain (PI16/00598 and PI19/00819, co-funded by European Regional Development Fund/European Social Fund, “Investing in your future”); Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (SAF2016-75197-R); “Junta de Castilla y Leon” (SA063P17); AECC Scientific Foundation (2017/2020), Spain; “Centro Internacional sobre el Envejecimiento” (OLD-HEPAMARKER, 0348_CIE_6_E), Spain; University of Salamanca Foundation, Spain (PC-TCUE18-20_051), and Fundació Marato TV3 (Ref. 201916-31), Spain (to J.J.G.M.). The UPV/EHU Lab and the Proteomics Platform are members of Proteored, PRB3 and is supported by grant PT17/0019, of the PE I + D + i 2013-2016, funded by ISCIII and ERDF. Ciberehd_ISCIII_MINECO is funded by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III. We thank MINECO for the Severo Ochoa Excellence Accreditation to CIC bioGUNE (SEV-2016-0644)