Consequences of enlargement for European Regional Policy: the spanish viewpoint

The aim of this study is to assess possible reforms for the future financial framework of the Community Budget for the period 2007-2013, attaching special importance to their impacts on the Spanish economy. We analyze the fiscal balances of each of the Fifteen with the Union budget and reveal the existence of problems of horizontal equity in the contributions of the Fifteen to the Community budget. We also show that, as opposed to what is usually affirmed, Spain is not the country that has most benefited from the Structural Measures policy. After simulating the costs that would be entailed in enlargement, including the “statistical effect”, we defend the advisability of introducing corrective mechanism that may enable the regions of the present members that would continue to be beneficiaries of aid to Objective 1 regions, if there were no enlargement, to go on receiving it. Furthermore, our study upholds a more ambitious proposal: to undertake a reduction in the Community budget funds allocated to direct CAP aid in order to release funds both for the regional policy and for other Community policies.

Fiscal illusion, fiscal consolidation and government expenditure composition in the OECD: a dynamic panel data approach

Following the present atmosphere of budgetary cuts in the OECD countries we analyze the effects of fiscal consolidation in the composition of government expenditures by functions. We modify a standard median voter demand model to incorporate a form of fiscal illusion based on the idea that voters-taxpayers may not be fully aware of the true composition of government expenditures because all types of expenditures are not equally visible. Then we exploit the panel structure of the dataset - 26 OECD countries over the period 1970-1997- by GMM estimation of a dynamic model taking into account unobserved country effects and possible endogeinity of the explanatory variables. Under the assumption that governments know the relative visibility of each type of expenditure, the pattern of the last three decades indicates that defense and the non-productive economic services are the less visible expenditures. On the other hand, education and housing seem to be the more visible expenditures.

Determinants of the Composition of Government Expenditure by Functions

In this article we analyze the determinants of the functional distribution of government expenditure using for this purpose the models of the median voter's demand common in public choice literature. First of all, we review the economic literature on the factors affecting each component of government expenditure. Then, secondly, we develop a demand model of expenditure structure and we estimate the demand equations system for the sample of OECD countries in the period 1970-1997. The results reveal that, besides income and prices, institutional factors, population density and its age structure have significant effects on the composition of government expenditure.

The evolution and convergence of the government expenditure composition in the OECD countries: an analysis of the functional distribution

This paper explores the existence of convergence in the structure of government expenditure by functions in the OECD countries for the period 1970-1998 and the prospects of this process persisting in the future. The results obtained first through the similarity index and afterwards using the usual convergence indicators, adapted to the analysis of the breakdown of public expenditure, point to the existence of a distribution approximation. Nevertheless, we have found that the majority of expenditures were near to the steady-state, which differs across countries. This suggests that there are some individual factors that impede convergence to a single structure in the long run.

La presidencia española europea y la agricultura

Como corresponde a esta sección presentamos «de un vistazo y muchas aristas» una temática que durante los pasados meses ha estado el centro de muchos debates, la Presidencia española de la Unión Europea, para analizar -tomando diferentes declaraciones, extractos o fragmentos aparecidos en los medios de comunicación o en documentos ofi ciales de la propia Presidencia-, lo que ella ha representado en los temas relacionados con la agricultura común, las relaciones con terceros países, la lucha contra el cambio climático y el trabajo a favor de la conservación de la biodiversidad

The evolution and convergence of the government expenditure composition in the OECD countries: an analysis of the functional distribution

The composition of the public expenditure affects the long-run growth rate (Barro, 1990, Devarajan, Swaroop and Zou, 1996). This paper has explored the existence of convergence in the structure of government expenditure by functions in the OECD countries for the period 1970-1998 and the perspectives of this process to persist in the future. The results obtained first through the similarity index and afterwards using the usual convergence indicators (ƒÒ, ƒã and ƒ×), adapted to the analysis of the breakdown of public expenditure, point out to the existence of a distribution approximation. Nevertheless, we have found that the majority of expenditures were near to the steady-state, which differs across countries. This reveals that there are some individual factors that impede the convergence to a single structure in the long run. This could be one of the explanations of the difference observed among economic growth rates in developed countries.convergence, composition of public expenditures, funtions of the government

Las dioxinas aparecen para testificar que no hay Soberanía Alimentaria

Durante este invierno del 2011 hemos sido testigos de una nueva 'crisis alimentaria', como así describen las autoridades a las situaciones de riesgo para la salud de las y los consumidores. ¿Qué nos enseña esta crisis? Como vemos en este recopilatorio de textos y declaraciones al respecto, tenemos un problema que, nuevamente, es consecuencia lógica de un modelo productivo intensificado bajo un marco político neoliberal

El marco financiero de la UE para el período 2014-2018: análisis de posibles reformas modernizadoras del Presupuesto comunitario

La Comisión Europea ha lanzado un debate sobre la reforma de los Presupuestos comunitarios con vistas al próximo marco financiero de 2014–2018. En este documento de Trabajo se argumenta sobre la conveniencia de adoptar las propuestas de Fuente y Doménech (2001) y Fuente et al. (2008) de separar la determinación de los saldos netos y la negociación de las Perspectivas financieras. Los gobiernos negociarían entonces las políticas de la UE en función de su mérito en lugar de su conveniencia para sus intereses nacionales. Esta reforma abriría paso para que, en línea con los trabajos de Begg (2005 y 2007), el Presupuesto comunitario financie programas sobre los que la UE puede aportar valor añadido y aquellos en los que la teoría del federalismo fiscal señala que la centralización genera ganancias de eficiencia. Los saldos netos se distribuirían como un porcentaje de la desviación de la renta per cápita de cada país con respecto al promedio europeo (Fuente et al., 2008). Aunque la implementación de esta reforma no será fácil, este documento muestra que, de facto, el Presupuesto comunitario se ajusta cada vez más a este mecanismo

Does the composition of government expenditure matter for long-run GDP levels?

We examine the long-run GDP impacts of changes in total government expenditure and in the shares of different spending categories for a sample of OECD countries since the 1970s, taking account of methods of financing expenditure changes and possible endogenous relationships. We provide more systematic empirical evidence than available hitherto for OECD countries, obtaining strong evidence that reallocating total spending towards infrastructure and education is positive for long-run output levels. Reallocating spending towards social welfare (and away from all other expenditure categories pro-rata) may be associated with modest negative effects on output in the long-run

Natación y flexibilidad

Con frecuencia escuchamos la afirmación ¿la natación es un deporte muy completo¿ y a priori, esto es cierto, ya que durante su práctica se implica a la mayor parte del aparato locomotor y cabe esperar que a su vez se desarrollen todas las capacidades físicas básicas. En este estudio se trata de comprobar, si la práctica habitual de la natación provoca alguna modificación en la flexibilidad de los músculos implicados en una prueba que mida esta capacidad física básica. Así, se ha testado a dos grupos de treinta o más sujetos con diferentes cargas de entrenamiento y se ha podido observar que los deportistas que realizaron una carga de entrenamiento elevada perdieron flexibilidad, mientras que los que realizaron unos entrenamientos con carga moderada, no vieron modificada esta capacidad. El test que se empleado para medir la flexibilidad en este estudio ha sido el test ¿Sit and reach¿ prueba utilizada en el ¿Eurofit¿