The choice of banking firm: Are the interest rate a significant criteria?

The objective of the research is to know the factors that in Spain determine the choice of banking organization. The obtained results indicate that the dimension of the network of branches is the reason more valued. In spite of the increasing symmetry of the Spanish banking market, the preferences of the clients of the savings banks and those of the banks are not absolutely coincident, being the proximity - the main reason for election- much more valued by the former than by the latter. The existence of divergences in the preferences has also been detected according to the region and the typology of city of residence.Choice criteria, retail banking, logit multinomial.

Venture capital and innovation at the firm level

This paper studies the relationship between venture capital (VC) and innovation using a self-collected dataset containing 119 innovative, VC-funded firms and 164,486 controls that operate in Spain. Probit model estimates indicate that firms that have applied for at least one patent are significantly more likely to obtain VC investments. However, when implementing a matching approach to correct for selectivity, no evidence is found of a significant impact of VC on firms’ patenting activity. Rather, evidence is found of a positive effect of VC on the sales growth of funded firms. These results suggest that, rather than having an impact on innovation activities, venture capitalists (VCs) focus on the commercialization of existing products. A finer breakdown by ownership and investment stage also provides evidence that private VCs and early stage investments are notably more effective at stimulating sales than public VCs and late stage investments respectively

Banking towards development: Evidence from the Spanish banking expansion plan

During the period 1965-1987 Spain was an emerging market in full transition from developing to developed status. During the same period the Spanish banking system underwent an unprecedented episode of expansion growing from 5,000 to over 30,000 bank branches. We examine whether the latter process partly caused the former by focusing on the relationship between branch expansion and entrepreneurship in the wholesale and retail trade industries. To address the non-random allocation of bank branches we exploit changes in branching policies that induced a plausibly exogenous time-varying pattern in the relationship between a municipality’s initial financial development and branch expansion. Our estimates, based on a panel data-set of over 2,000 Spanish municipalities, reveal that branch expansion had a strong positive impact on entrepreneurship. This effect was essentially driven by the savings banks, which have stronger regional development objectives than those held by the commercial banks, and which expanded more intensely into municipalities with more precarious financial services

Banking the unbanked: Evidence from the Spanish banking expansion plan

What are the benefits of lifting structural impediments to banking the unbanked? We address this question by studying the Spanish Banking Expansion Plan 1964-1974, a program aimed at extending banking services into unbanked municipalities after decades of banking status quo. We exploit the quasi-experimental nature of the program to identify its effects. Selected municipalities experienced a 9% increase in the number of workers per inhabitant. This effect was driven by the lending channel, primarily through the provision of liquidity and working capital, though not through the savings channel

How inventor royalty shares affect patenting and income in Portugal and Spain

Portuguese and Spanish universities have adopted well-defined royalty sharing schedules during the last fifteen years. We investigate whether these inventor royalty shares have been effective at stimulating inventors’ efforts and ultimately improving university outcomes. We base our empirical analysis on university-level data as well as on new self-collected surveys completed by inventors and Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs). Econometric evidence from the university-level data set indicates that royalty shares have no impact on patenting or licensing income. The same result emerges from the inventors’ survey, with most respondents claiming to be largely unaffected by royalty sharing. Evidence from both the TTO and inventors’ surveys suggests that inventors do not react to royalty sharing because of the poor commercial prospects of their inventions, which means there is little income to be shared. These poor prospects appear to reflect the fact that the TTOs do not focus sufficiently on commercializing inventions and inventors are unable to produce potentially licensable inventions

The choice of banking firm : are the interest rate a significant criteria?

The objective of the research is to know the factors that in Spain determine the choice of banking organization. The obtained results indicate that the dimension of the network of branches is the reason more valued. In spite of the increasing symmetry of the Spanish banking market, the preferences of the clients of the savings banks and those of the banks are not absolutely coincident, being the proximity - the main reason for election- much more valued by the former than by the latter. The existence of divergences in the preferences has also been detected according to the region and the typology of city of residence

Royalty sharing, effort and invention in universities: Evidence from Portugal and Spain

Portuguese and Spanish universities have adopted well-defined royalty sharing arrangements over the last fifteen years. We investigate whether such royalty sharing arrangements have been effective in stimulating inventors' efforts and in ultimately improving university outcomes. We base our empirical analysis on university-level data and two new self-collected surveys for both inventors and Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs). Evidence from the inventors' survey indicates that one third of respondents are incentivised by current royalty sharing arrangements, one third could be incentivised by higher royalty shares, and the remaining third is totally insensitive to royalty sharing

Sunk costs, extensive R&D subsidies and permanent inducement effects

We study whether there is scope for using subsidies to smooth out barriers to R&D performance and expand the share of R&D firms in Spain. We consider a dynamic model with sunk entry costs in which firms' optimal participation strategy is defined in terms of two subsidy thresholds that characterise entry and continuation. We compute the subsidy thresholds from the estimates of a dynamic panel data type-2 tobit model for an unbalanced panel of about 2,000 Spanish manufacturing firms. The results suggest that "extensive" subsidies are a feasible and efficient tool for expanding the share of R&D firms

Sunk costs, extensive R&D subsidies and permanent inducement effects

We study whether there is scope for using subsidies to smooth out barriers to R&D performance and expand the share of R&D firms in Spain. We consider a dynamic model with sunk entry costs in which firms� optimal participation strategy is defined in terms of two subsidy thresholds that characterise entry and continuation. We compute the subsidy thresholds from the estimates of a dynamic panel data type-2 tobit model for an unbalanced panel of about 2,000 Spanish manufacturing firms. The results suggest that �extensive� subsidies are a feasible and efficient tool for expanding the share of R&D firms