The effect of legal barriers to entry in the Spanish retail market: a local market approach.

Recent studies have shown that barriers to entry for large retail establishments in Spain have been increased in the last decade. Using information on local markets, we test whether the entry of large retail establishments was effectively limited by regional regulation and whether it effectively protected in-town shops from competition. We find that if entry barriers were reduced to their average level in 1997, the number of large retail establishments would increase by 11.7%. We also find that over-regulation in 1997 has improved in-town shops’ market position, with their number increasing by 13.8%.Barriers to entry, retail distribution, regulation

Econometric testing of spatial productivity spillovers from public capital

In this paper we review two different approaches followed in the empirical literature to test for the existence of public capital spillovers. Additionally, we explore the role played by an additive aggregator of public capital in neighboring regions versus the multiplicative aggregator used previously in the literature. In the empirical application we compare the different methodologies using a panel data set of the 47 mainland Spanish provinces. We do not find evidence of the existence of spillover effects of public infrastructure.Public capital, public infrastructure, spatial spillovers.

- FIRM-SPECIFIC TEMPORAL VARIATION IN TECHNICAL EFFICENCY RESULTS OF: A STOCHASTIC OUTPUT DISTANCE FUNCTION

The aim of this paper is to test the temporal variation of technical efficiency of the Spanish Savings Banks during the period 1985-1994. Furthermore, a stochastic output distance function (Shephard, 1970) is employed to accommodate multiple output technology. The distance function provides the advantage that it does not need information about prices, so it can accommodate the multiproduct nature of the financial sector only using the quantitiesas data. The temporal variation of efficiency is modeled using an extension of Battese and Coelli (1992), allowing for firm-specific patterns of temporal change. El objetivo de este trabajo es contrastar la variación temporal de la eficiencia técnica de las Cajas de Ahorros españolas durante el periodo 1985-1994. Para ello la tecnología se modeliza a través de la función de distancia (Shephard, 1970) y el término de ineficiencia se especifica mediante una generalización del modelo propuesto por Battese y Coelli (1992). La función de distancia tiene la ventaja de que puede recoger tecnologías multiproducto sin precisar de información acerca de precios. Esta ventaja es mayor en un sector como el bancario en el que, generalmente, los precios se construyen a partir de gastos, lo cual podría suponer un problema. Por último, el modelo propuesto permite que el término de ineficiencia varíe con el tiempo de forma particular para cada empresa.Eficiencia técnica variante en el tiempo, Funciones de distancia estocásticas Time-varying Technical Efficiency, Stochastic Distance Functions, Panel Data.

Estimating market power in homogeneous product markets using a composed error model

This study contributes to the literature on estimating market power in homogenous product markets. We estimate a composed error model, where the stochastic part of the firmﾒs pricing equation is formed by two random variable

How effective has the Spanish lockdown been to battle COVID-19? A spatial analysis of the coronavirus propagation across provinces

This paper examines the propagation of COVID-19 across the Spanish provinces and assesses the effectiveness of the Spanish lockdown of the population implemented on March 14, 2020 in order to battle this pandemic. To achieve these objectives, a standard spatial econometric model used in economics is adapted to resemble the popular reproduction models employed in the epidemiological literature. In addition, we introduce a counterfactual exercise that allows us to examine the Gross domestic product (GDP) gains of bringing forward the date of the Spanish Lockdown. We find that the number of COVID-19 cases would have been reduced by 70.4% in the absence of spatial propagation between the Spanish provinces. We also determine that the lockdown prevented the propagation of the virus within and between provinces. As such, the Spanish lockdown reduced the number of potential COVID-19 cases by 82.8%. However, the number of coronavirus cases would have been reduced by an additional 11.6% if the lockdown had been brought forward to March 7, 2020. Finally, an earlier lockdown would have saved approximately 26,900,000,000 eurosMinisterio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Grant/Award Number: PRX19/00596, PRX19/00589 INNJOBMAD-CM, Grant/Award Number: H2019/HUM-5761 Ministry of Science and Innovation, Grant/Award Number: PID2020-113076GB-I0

A Bottom-Up Spatial (Frontier) Model with an Application to a Spanish Electricity Network

In December 2013 a new electricity law was approved in Spain as part of an electricity market reform including a new remuneration scheme for distribution companies. This remuneration scheme was updated in December 2019 and the new regulatory framework introduced a series of relevant modifications that aim to encourage the regulated firms to reduce their power supply interruptions using a benchmarking approach. While some managerial decisions can prevent electricity power supply interruptions, other managerial decisions are more oriented to mitigate the consequences of these interruptions. This paper examines the second type of decisions using a unique dataset on the power supply interruptions of a Spanish distribution company network between 2013 and 2019. We focus on the effect of grid automatization on the restoration times, the relative efficiency of the maintenance staff, and the importance of its location. We combine a bottom-up spatial model and a stochastic frontier model to examine respectively external and internal power supply interruptions at municipal level. This model resembles the conventional spatial autoregressive models but differs from them in several important aspects

Using Supervised Environmental Composites in Production and Efficiency Analyses: An Application to Norwegian Electricity Networks

Supervised dimension reduction methods have been extensively applied in different scientific fields like biology and medicine in recent years. However, they have hardly ever been used in micro economics, and in particular cost function modeling. Nonetheless, these methods can also be useful in regulation of natural monopolies such as gas, water, and electricity networks, where firms’ cost and performance can be affected by a large number of environmental factors. In order to deal with this 'dimensionality' problem we propose using a supervised dimension reduction approach that aims to reduce the dimension of data without loss of information. Economic theory suggests that in the presence of other relevant production (cost) drivers, the traditional all-inclusive assumption is not satisfied and, hence, production or cost predictions (and efficiency estimates) might be biased. This paper shows that purging the data using a partial regression approach allows us to address this issue when analyzing the effect of weather and geography on cost efficiency in the context of the Norwegian electricity distribution networks

Medium dependence of asphaltene agglomeration inhibitor efficiency

Applying chemical additives (molecule inhibitors or dispersants) is one of the common ways to control asphaltene agglomeration and precipitation. However, it is not clear why at some conditions the synthetic flocculation inhibitors as well as resins not only do not inhibit the asphaltene agglomeration,, they may also promote it, and why the increasing of the additive concentration may lead to the diminishing of their efficacy. To clarify this issue, in the present work we have performed a set of vapor preassure osmometry experiments investigating the asphaltene agglomeration inhibition by commercial and new inhibitor molecules in toluene and o-diclorobenzene. Monte Carlo computer modeling has been applied to interpret some unexpected trends of molar mass of the Puerto Ceiba asphaltene clusters at different concentrations of inhibitor, assuming that inhibitors efficiency is directly related to their adsorption on the surface of asphaltene or its complexes. It has been found that a self-assembly of inhibitor molecules, induced by relative lyophilic or lyophobic interactions, may be a reason of the inhibitor efficacy declining.Comment: 21 page

How do your rivals' releasing dates affect your box office?

In this paper, we study to what extent a movie's box office receipts are affected by the temporal distribution of rival films. We propose a theoretical model that analyses the effects of past, present and future releases on a film's results. Using this model we can analyse how rivals' release dates impact on others' box office revenues. This theoretical model also allows us to carry out some comparative statics by changing some relevant parameters such as time depreciation, film quality or the timeline of exhibition. We have tested the empirical implications of this model using information on the films released in five countries: the USA, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Spain. In order to maintain a degree of homogeneity, we have constructed an unbalanced panel consisting of films that were released in at least three of these countries. The geographical dimension of our data set allows us to use panel data techniques to control for unobserved heterogeneity among the films released. This allows us to control for one of the most relevant features of the movie market, namely the presence of highly differentiated products.temporal competition, movie exhibition, film industry, panel data, unobserved heterogeneity, differentiated product