Precios y calidad de las importaciones españolas de productos textiles

Este trabajo tiene el objetivo de estudiar los niveles relativos de precios y calidad de las importaciones españolas de productos textiles según su origen geográfico; para ello, se calculan índices translog de precios que permiten atribuir las diferencias en el valor unitario de los flujos de importación a los distintos niveles de calidad de los productos que los integran y a diferencias en sus precios. El análisis se lleva a cabo para el período 1993-1997, con una desagregación de seis dígitos de la Nomenclatura Combinada y datos de EUROSTAT. Se obtiene que las diferencias en los valores unitarios de las importaciones españolas según su origen son muy notables, correspondiendo los mayores niveles a las procedentes de países europeos en comparación con las que proceden de China y los países asiáticos. El menor valor unitario de las importaciones asiáticas responde, fundamentalmente, a sus menores precios y, aunque los niveles de calidad son por lo general favorables a las importaciones de países europeos, las diferencias sobre tales niveles son menos [email protected]; [email protected]

La productividad en los servicios

La productividad de los servicios en la economía española ha avanzado a un ritmo muy lento debido a las dificultades existentes para capitalizar la mayoría de sus actividades y al lento avance tecnológico experimentado por el sector. En este artículo se analiza el comportamiento diferencial de la productividad de los bienes y servicios y sus variaciones desde los años sesenta, tratando de explicar las razones de dicho comportamiento. Asimismo, se realiza un análisis comparativo del crecimiento reciente de la productividad en relación a países más avanzados, con la finalidad de detectar las posibles carencias en la adaptación del sector terciario español al nuevo entorno técnico y econó[email protected]; [email protected]

Job search: Intensity and reservation wage in the Spanish labour market

The aim of this paper is to illustrate that, under certain assumptions, the influence of unemployment benefits (UB) on the efficiency in labour allocation depends crucially on the way UB affect Job search. Individual Job search is influenced by UB in a twofold way: decreasing search intensity and increasing reservation wage. While the former lowers the discounted value of individual lifetime production, the latter has an ambiguous effect on such value. In order to separate empirically one effect from each other, a bivariate probit model with partial observability is estimated using individual data. El objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar que, bajo ciertas condiciones, la influencia del seguro de desempleo [UB] sobre la eficiencia en la asignación del trabajo depende crucialmente del modo en que tales prestaciones afectan a la búsqueda de empleo. El proceso de búsqueda por parte de un desempleado se ve influenciado por el seguro de paro a través de dos vías: reduciendo la intensidad de búsqueda e incrementando el salario de reserva. Mientras a través de la primera vía se reduce el valor descontado de la producción futura del desempleado, la última ejerce un efecto ambiguo sobre tal valor. Para separar empíricamente ambos efectos, en el trabajo se estima un modelo probit bivariatne con observabilidad parcial utilizando datos individuales.Búsqueda de empleo, seguro de desempleo Job search, unemployment benefits

What makes a citrus farmer go 'organic'? Empirical evidence from Spanish citrus farming

Organic farming is increasing its share of total world food output and receiving growing support from policymakers concerned with agricultural sustainability issues. This paper studies the characteristics of citrus farmers in the Spanish region of Valencia that affect their probability of becoming organic farmers. A fair understanding of these characteristics may help policymakers improve the design of agricultural policies aimed at supporting organic citrus practices. As regards the methodology, a probit model is estimated with information from a sample of conventional and organic citrus farmers obtained from a survey designed for a larger research project aimed at analysing Valencian citrus farming. Our main finding is that university education and agricultural professional training both increase the probability of becoming an organic farmer. Conversely, older farmers, farmers selling their production to foreign markets and those with larger farms and/or managing family farms are less likely to adopt organic citrus farming. The main policy implication is that, in order to support organic citrus production, more attention needs to be paid to improving farmers' technical training and education

Performance and risk in the Brazilian banking industry

Andres J. Picazo-Tadeo aknowledges the financial support from the Generalitat Valenciana (project PROMETEO 2018/102).This paper assesses the technical performance of Brazilian banks while accounting for risk, which is considered as an undesirable outcome of banking. To this end, frontier techniques based on Data Envelopment Analysis and directional distance functions are applied to a sample of 124 banks and data for the six-year period 2014-19. Our main finding is that the Brazilian banking industry could notably increase its production of conventional outputs without additional input usage and while maintaining the same levels of risk. Besides, investment banks are found to be more efficient than commercial banks mainly because of their superior managerial performance.Generalitat Valenciana European Commission PROMETEO 2018/10

MECANIZACION Y SUSTITUCION DE FACTORES PRODUCTIVOS EN LA AGRICULTURA VALENCIANA

This paper analizes the main aspects that have helpedto shape the process of mechanization of valencian agriculture. Thetime path of severa1 mechanization indexes have been taken intoaccount for the 1961-88 period and differences in machinery use atsubregional level have also been stu-died. A model based in a CESproduction function is used to estimate the elasticity of substitutionbetween labor and mechanical power. Results are coherent with themain hypothesis suggested to explain managerial behaviour at farmlevel in the Valencian Region. El presente trabajo analiza las formas peculiares que harevestido la mecanización en la agricultura valenciana. Para ello setiene en cuenta la evolución temporal de una serie de índices quereflejan la intensidad de este proceso entre 1961 y 1988, y seestudian también las diferencias intercomarcales en el uso de lamaquinaria. Asimismo se emplea un modelo basado en la función deproducción CES para estimar la elasticidad de sustitución entre eltrabajo humano y la energía mecánica. Los resultados soncoherentes con diversas hipótesis avanzadas en cuanto alfuncionamiento de las explotaciones agrarias valencianas.

Agricultura, desarrollo rural y sostenibilidad medioambiental

In addition to its traditional purpose of producing food and raw materials, agriculture plays an important role in terms of supplying public goods, generally in the form of externalities deriving from farming activities. These goods may be predominantly economic and social –rural development– or environmental –protection of biodiversity or landscape preservation. This study analyses the economic basis of agricultural multifunctionality associated with the joint production of private and public goods in farming and its implications in terms of economic policies. We also explain and assess the legislation –and its financing– that currently makes it possible to develop a multifunctional concept of farming in Spain. Finally, we present the results of recent research regarding the production of environmental goods by certain farming systems in Spain.Agriculture, multifunctionality, public goods, rural development, environmental services.

Political connections, corruption, and privatization of public services: Evidence from contracting out water services in Spain

Political corruption is a type of market failure. One area of public policy where corruption is relatively common is the contracting out of public services. Private firms can improve their chances of obtaining contracts by bribing politicians or public servants and funding political parties. In the same vein, firms can gain access to policy makers by hiring influential former politicians –a practice commonly referred to as revolving-doors. In Spain, a number of corruption cases, involving all the major political parties, are presently under judicial investigation. Some of these cases involve water contracts. Also, there is evidence showing that private firms have been funding political parties as well as hiring former politicians for top positions. In this paper, we use information from 892 privatizations of water services in Spanish municipalities between 1984 and 2014 and logistic multinomial regression techniques to study the association between specific firms securing contracts and the political parties ruling the municipalities. We find evidence of a systematic association between the Popular Party (Partido Popular or PP) and the firm, Aqualia, part of the large Spanish holding company, Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC), which is known to have funded the PP. Furthermore, former PP politicians have been appointed to top positions in the FCC board of directors

Does service quality matter in measuring performance of water utilities?

Quality is a dimension of water services that has been repeatedly omitted in the study of performance of water utilities. In this paper, we make use of Data Envelopment Analysis techniques (DEA) to compute both conventional quantity-based and quality-adjusted indicators of technical efficiency for a sample of Spanish water utilities. The key assumptions are that a lack of quality (bad quality) can be regarded as a bad output, and the existence of a trade-off between quantity and quality. Our main results indicate that quality matters in measuring technical performance, the difference between conventional and quality-adjusted evaluations representing the opportunity cost of maintaining quality. Averages and distribution functions significantly differ between both assessments of performance, although water utilities do not seem to rank differently

Efficiency and environmental regulation : a 'complex situation'

Production of desirable outputs is often accompanied by undesirable by products that have damaging effects on the environment, and whose disposal is frequently regulated by public authorities. In this paper, we compute directional technology distance functions under particular assumptions concerning disposability of bads in order to test for the existence of what we call 'complex situations', where the biggest producer is not the greatest polluter. Furthermore, we show that how in such situations, environmental regulation could achieve an effective reduction in the aggregate level of bad outputs without reducing the production of good outputs. Finally, we illustrate our methodology with an empirical application to a sample of Spanish tile ceramic producers