Impact Assessment of European Structural Funds in Andalusia - a CGE Approach

In this work we carry out an impact analysis of the European Structural Funds (ESF) to the object of assessing their effect on the GDP, the level of prices or the consumers’ income on the region of Andalusia in the south of Spain. Accordingly, we present an Applied General Equilibrium Model (AGEM_A) and we compare the reception scenario of regional funds with a hypothetical situation where this financial support has been removed. The AGEM_A has been built by supplementing the statistical information provided by the Social Accounting Matrices for Andalusia corresponding to 1990, 1995 and 1999, with the data included in the three Community Support Frameworks (CSF) approved by the European Commission.

VALIDATING POLICY INDUCED ECONOMIC CHANGE USING SEQUENTIAL GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM SAMs

This paper explores the capacity of computable general equilibrium (CGE) models to track down policy induced economic changes and their ability to generate contrastable data for an economy. Starting from an empirically built regional Social Accounting Matrix (SAM), a first stage CGE calibrated model is constructed. The model is then perturbed with a set of policy shocks related to European Union Structural Funds 2000-2005 invested into the region of Andalusia in the south of Spain. The counterfactual equilibrium is translated into a virtual SAM, conformal with the initial one, which is in turn reused to calibrate the next stage in the CGE modeling. And so on until the last stage is reached and all European funds yearly invested have been absorbed by the economy. Since at the end of the process another empirical SAM is available, it can be compared with the terminally produced virtual SAM. The comparison shows the sequence of SAMs to provide a very good fit to the actual data in the empirical SAM. Regional GDP and unemployment rates are two examples of the close approximation. With this novel approach we evaluate, from the methodological viewpoint, the projection capabilities of CGE modeling and at the same time we provide an empirical assessment of the said European policies.Social accounting matrices, applied general equilibrium, impact analysis, European regional policy.

A price model to assess the inflationary effects of the European Regional Policy

Social Accounting Matrices (SAM) are databases that complete the information provided by the input-output tables. They study the intersectorial relationships of an economy, the behaviour of consumers, the government or the foreign sector, while being able to close the income flow of rent. In this work, we deal with the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) in Andalusia, a Spanish region classified as Objective 1 by the European Regional policy. We apply the Leontief model on the SAMs for 1990, 1995 and 1999 to get the gross output fall when we remove these regional funds. Furthermore, we develop a price model to assess the impact of this financial support on aggregate and sectorial prices.Social Accounting Matrix, Regional Accounting, Structural Analysis.

Structural Path Analysis: Applications to Structural Changes in the Andalusian economy (1990-1999)

Social Accounting Matrices (SAM) are an useful tool that enables to get extenser information than Input-Output analysis as far as they work not only with an economy´s intersectorial relations, but also with consumers' behaviour, government or foreign sector; reflecting the income flow of rent. In this paper, we use Social Accounting Matrices for Andalusia for years 1990, 1995 y 1999, that we got from previous works. With this information we use "path analysis" technique to obtain the main changes in the productive structure and demand in Andalusia for the last ten years. Those changes will be represented in a three-dimensional picture. We also want to know which are the sectors that have strongly contributed to regional economic growth. Finally we measure the influence of sectorial shocks on themselves and also on the other sectors of this regional economy. Keywords: social accounting matrix, regional accounting, structural analysis. JEL: C67, D57, R15.

Using a CGE Model to Identify the Policy Trade-Off between Unemployment and Inflation: The Efficient Phillips Curve

This paper provides a new reading of a classical economic relation: the short-run Phillips curve. Our point is that, when dealing with inflation and unemployment, policy-making can be understood as a multicriteria decisionmaking problem. Hence, we use so-called multiobjective programming in connection with a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to determine the combinations of policy instruments that provide efficient combinations of inflation and unemployment. This approach results in an alternative version of the Phillips curve labelled as efficient Phillips curve. Our aim is to present an application of CGE models to a new area of research that can be especially useful when addressing policy exercises with real data. We apply our methodological proposal within a particular regional economy, Andalusia, in the south of Spain. This tool can give some keys for policy advice and policy implementation in the fight against unemployment and inflation

Are there key sectors? : an appraisal using applied general equilibrium

An extension of the hypothetical extraction method to a general equilibrium setting is considered. This has the advantage of re-interpreting output changes as efficiency gains or losses, which may be of use in identifying "key" sectors in an interconnected economy. The categorization may be relevant for the evaluation of intersectoral synergies and for improving policy planning and orienting economic strategy. We argue that the standard measures based on gross outputs may not capture all of the relevant impacts and this is so because of some self-imposed modeling and accounting limitations. An economy-wide Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) approach provides a modeling platform that overcomes these limitations since it offers (i) a more comprehensive measure of linkages and (ii) an alternative way of accounting for linkages' relevance that is in closer accordance with the standard statistical magnitudes used in national or regional accounts

Rural-urban social accounting matrixes for modelling the impact of rural development policies in the EU

This report complements previous work and builds NUTS3 SAMs for twelve regions, following a careful approach, that we call the expert approach. This report investigates the results of this approach by running some simple policy simulations and providing the structural descriptions of these regions. Further, this report aims at producing testing a more automatic approach to the construction of NUTS3 SAMs, to a view of reducing the necessary time and data requirements. Using several examples, this report examines whether such automatic approach can provide reliable SAMs at NUTS3 level. It finally draws conclusions as to the usefulness of both approaches in providing tools for further policy analysis in the field of rural development policy analysisJRC.J.4-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom

A multiplier evaluation of primary factors supply-shocks

Demand-side multipliers have ruled within multisectoral models as the main indicators for policy effectiveness and key-sector determination. The causal link between new exogenous final demand and responded endogenous total output is well understood and has been the basis for such a prevalent demand-side analysis both in linear interindustry analysis and in non-linear applied general equilibrium models. In this paper we shift the perspective to supply-side injections and we do so by studying the repercussion effects of marshalling additional primary factors, labor and capital services, which are injected into the economy and give rise to a general resource reallocation. As a result, we obtain estimates of supply multipliers that provide complementary information to standard demand multipliers. We illustrate the methodology using an empirical general equilibrium model built with the most recent data for the region of Andalusia, Spain.REPEC_wphaeiPostprin

A methodology to study price-quantity interactions in inputoutput modeling : an application to NextGenerationEU funds

Severo Ochoa Program for Centers of excellence in R&D grant CEX2019-00915-S to the Barcelona School of Economics.The input-output (I-O) model is a widely employed tool for examining the interconnected structure of an economy and evaluating policy impacts. The current model consists of two separate and independent modules that describe the underlying factors governing quantities and prices. However, these modules lack any form of interaction, existing in isolated spheres where prices do not influence quantities, and quantities do not affect prices. Consequently, the I-O model has been questioned for its limited descriptive capability, particularly when a more comprehensive assessment is necessary. This study aims to enhance the explanatory capabilities of the I-O model by proposing a novel improvement. We introduce an extended version of the traditional I-O price and quantity models, which integrates them into a unified "price-quantity" model, establishing interdependencies between the two modules. This integrated model could be useful in advancing the explanatory capacity of I-O analysis, without having to resort to computational general equilibrium (CGE) models. As we know, CGE models are considerably more complex and resource-intensive in terms of data requirements compared to I-O models. To evaluate the impact of NextGenerationEU funds on the Spanish economy, we apply this integrated I-O model, utilizing data from a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for 2016, the latest year with available oficial I-O data

Unified dark energy thermodynamics: varying w and the -1-crossing

We investigate, in a unified and general way, the thermodynamic properties of dark energy with an arbitrary, varying equation-of-state parameter w(a). We find that all quantities are well defined and regular for every w(a), including at the -1-crossing, with the temperature being negative in the phantom regime (w(a)-1). The density and entropy are always positive while the chemical potential can be arbitrary. At the -1-crossing, both temperature and chemical potential are zero. The temperature negativity can only be interpreted in the quantum framework. The regular behavior of all quantities at the -1-crossing, leads to the conclusion that such a crossing does not correspond to a phase transition, but rather to a smooth cross-over.Comment: 5 pages, version published in Class. Quant. Gra