Dades professionals

 

 

Catedràtic d’Economia Aplicada

Dep. d’Econometria, Estadística i Economia Espanyola

Universitat de Barcelona

 

Coordinador del grup de recerca “Anàlisi Quantitativa Regional” — AQR

 

Membre del Institut de Recerca en Economia Aplicada — IREA

 

Adreça: Avda Diagonal 690, 08034 Barcelona

Tel.: 934037041

FAX: +934021821

Email: elopez@ub.edu

 

 

 

 

Publicacions

Documents de Treball

 

 


 

 

 

Publicacions

 

 

Revistes internacionals

 

Human capital threshold effects in the internationalisation-productivity growth relationship - evidence from Spanish regions, Empirical Economics Letters, 7: 1083-1089 (2008, amb Serrano G i Requena F)

 

Does human capital stimulate investment in physical capital?: Evidence from a cost system framework, Economic Modelling, 25: 1295-1305 (2008, amb Moreno R)

 

Firm size and the entire distribution of wages. A semiparametric approach, Applied Economics Letters, 15: 427-430 (2008, amb El-Attar M)

 

Returns to local and transport infrastructure under regional spillovers, International Regional Science Review, 30: 47-71 (2007, amb Moreno R)

 

Regional heterogeneity in the private and social returns to human capital, Spatial Economic Analysis 2: 23-44 (2007, amb Moreno R)

 

Complementarity between local knowledge and internationalisation in regional technological progress, Journal of Regional Science, 46: 901-929 (2006, amb Serrano G i Requena F)

 

Empirical Growth Models with Spatial Effects, Papers in Regional Science, 85: 177-198 (2006, amb Fingleton B)

 

The geographical distribution of unemployment in Spain, Regional Studies, 39: 305-318 (2005, amb del Barrio T i Artís M)

 

Breaking the panels: An application to the GDP per capita, Econometrics Journal,  8: 159-175 (2005, amb Carrión JLl i del Barrio T)

 

Regional Externalities and Growth: Evidence from European Regions, Journal of Regional Science, 44: 43-73 (2004, amb Vayá E i Artís M)

 

Evidence on the Purchasing Power Parity in a Panel of Cities, Applied Economics, 36: 961-966 (2004, amb  Carrión JLl i del Barrio T)

 

On the Effectiveness of Private and Public Capital, Applied Economics 35: 727-740  (2003, amb Moreno A i Artís M)

 

New Evidence on international R&D spillovers, human capital and productivity in the OECD, Economics Letters, 77: 41-45 (2002, amb del Barrio T i Serrano G)

 

The Regional Distribution of Spanish Unemployment. A Spatial Analysis, Papers in Regional Science, 81: 365-389 (2002, amb del Barrio T i Artís M)

 

Public Infrastructure, Private Capital and the Performance of Manufactures, Regional Science and Urban Economics, 32: 97-121 (2002, amb Moreno R i Artís M) 

 

Regional Economic Dynamics and Convergence in the EU, The Annals of Regional Science, 33: 343-370 (1999, amb Vayá E, Mora AJ i Suriñach J)

 

Evidence on the complex link between infrastructures and regional growth, International Journal of Development and Planning Literature, 12: 81-109 (1998, amb Moreno R, Artis M i Suriñach J)

 

Is There an Homogeneous Spanish Mediterranean Axis?, Papers in Regional Science, 76: 91-113 (1997, amb Artís M i Suriñach J)

 

 

 

Revistes espanyoles

 

Cambios en la distribución salarial en España, 1995-2002. Efectos a través del tipo de contrato, Revista de Economía Aplicada (en premsa, amb Motellón E i El-Attar M)

 

Comentari a "Geographic Neutrality: Measuring International Trade Integration" d’Arribas et al, Moneda y Crédito, 226: 178-183 (2008)

 

El papel del capital humano en la relación entre internacionalización y crecimiento de las regiones españolas, Temas Actuales de Economía, 2: 137-163 (2008, amb Serrano G i Requena F)

 

Heterogeneidad en las distribuciones salariales entre las regiones españolas, Papeles de Economía Española 107: 214-230 (2006, amb El-Attar M)

 

Contraste de las condiciones de óptimo para capital y producto en la industria española, Revista de Economía Aplicada 37: 31-49  (2005, amb Moreno R i Artís M)

 

Externalidades entre economías en crecimiento. Competencia vs cooperación regional, Papeles y Memorias de la Real Academia de Ciencias Morales y Políticas XII: 108-131 (2004)

 

Capital humano, apertura y crecimiento. Evidencia para la industria de las regiones españolas, Economía Industrial 357: 175-187 (2004, amb Serrano G, García JR i Requena F)

 

La distribución provincial del desempleo en España, Papeles de Economía Española 93: 195-208 (2002, amb del Barrio T i Artís M)

 

Convergencia Regional en la UE ante el nuevo entorno económico, ICE. Revista de Economía 762: 25-41 (1997, amb Vayá E, Mora AJ i Suriñach J)

 

 

 

Capítols de llibres internacionals

 

Increasing returns and the distribution of manufacturing productivity in the EU regions, en Arestis P, Baddeley M i McCombie JSL (Eds.), Economic Growth: New Directions in Theory and Policy, Edward Elgar. (2007, amb Fingleton B)

 

Infrastructure investments as a tool for regional development policy: Lessons from the Spanish evidence, en Artis M, Banerjee A i Marcellino M (Eds.), The Central and Eastern European Countries and the European Union, Cambridge University Press. (2006, amb Moreno R i Artis M)

 

Economic Growth and Spatial Externalities, en L. Anselin, R. Florax, and S. Rey  (Eds.), Advances in Spatial Econometrics, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg. (2004, amb Vaya E, Moreno R i Suriñach J)

 

External Effects and Costs of Production, en L. Anselin, R. Florax, and S. Rey  (Eds.), Advances in Spatial Econometrics, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg. (2004, amb Moreno R, Vaya E i Artís M)

 

Growth and Convergence across Economies: the Experience of the European Regions, en A Eraidin, B Fingleton i R Paci (Eds.), Regional Economic Growth, SMEs and the Wider Europe, Ashgate Publ, London (2003)

 

Explaining the distribution of manufacturing productivity in the EU regions, en Fingleton B (Ed.) European Regional Growth, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg (2003, amb Fingleton B)

 

Level shifts in a panel data based unit root test: an application to the rate of unemployment en Levine DK y Zame W (Eds.) Proceedings of the 2002 North American Summer Meetings of the Econometric Society: Economic Theory, Los Angeles. (2002, amb Carrión J Ll i del Barrio T)

 

 

Capítols de llibres i llibres espanyols

 

Diferencias regionales en el rendimiento privado y social del capital humano, en Villaverde J (Ed.) Competitividad Regional en la Unión Europea Ampliada, Instituto de Estudios Fiscales, Madrid. (2004, amb Moreno R)

 

Crecimiento y convergencia regional en España. ¿Qué hemos estado midiendo?, en Cabrer B (Ed.), Diez años de Análisis Regional: El Proyecto Hispalink, Ed. Mundi-Prensa, Madrid. (2001, amb Vaya E i Moreno R)

 

El papel de las regiones mediterráneas en la evolución de las disparidades regionales en la Unión Europea, en Bosch N y Castells A (Eds.) Desequilibrios territoriales en España y Europa, ARIEL Economía, Barcelona (1999)

 

Análisis Económico Regional. Nociones básicas de la Teoría de la Cointegración. A Bosch Ed, Barcelona. (1995, amb Suriñach J, Artís M i Sansó A)

 

 

 

Documents de treball

 

 

Human capital and regional wage gaps (amb Motellon E) PDF

 

Abstract: This paper assesses the contribution of human capital in explaining regional wage gaps, under the assumption that they have not only to do with regional differences in the endowment of such type of capital but also with the fact that returns to human capital investments differ across regions. The indirect effect of human capital on wages through its influence on the probability of employment is also taken into account by means of the specification of regional wage equations that control for participation in the labor market. The empirical analysis is based on a proposal of a new method to decompose regional wage gaps for this type of specification, and is applied to the analysis of average regional wage disparities in Spain, using individual data from the extended sample of 2000 of the European Union Household Panel. Results confirm the existence of disparities in the regional endowment of characteristics that, both directly and indirectly (through the effect on participation decisions into the labour market) contribute to regional wage gaps. But, they also suggest that regional heterogeneity in returns have even a larger contribution, which is particularly important in the case of the effect of human capital, related to education and experience.

 

 

Regional heterogeneity in wage distributions. Evidence from Spain (amb Motellon E i El-Attar M) Doc Treb IREA #2009-3

 

Abstract: Regional differences in real wages have been shown to be both large and persistent in the U.S. and the U.K., as well as in the economies of other countries. Empirical evidence suggests that wage differentials adjusted for the cost of living cannot only be explained by the unequal spatial distribution of characteristics determining earnings. Rather, average wage gap decomposition reveals the important contribution made by regional heterogeneity in the price assigned to these characteristics. This paper proposes a method for assessing regional disparities in the entire wage distribution and for decomposing the effect of differences across regions in the endowments and prices of the characteristics. The hypothesis forwarded is that the results from previous studies obtained by comparing average regional wages may be partial and nonrobust. Empirical evidence from a matched employer-employee dataset for Spain confirms marked differences in wage distributions between regions, which do not result from worker and firm characteristics but from the increasing role of regional differences in the return to human capital.

 

 

Decomposing differences in total factor productivity across firm size (amb Castany L i Moreno R) Doc Treb XREAP #2007-1

 

Abstract: This paper investigates the extent to which the gap in total factor productivity between small and large firms is due to differences in the endowment of factors determining productivity and to the returns associated with these factors. We place particular emphasis on the contribution of differences in the propensity to innovate and in the use of skilled labor across firms of different size. Empirical evidence from a representative sample of Spanish manufacturing firms corroborates that both differences in endowments and returns to innovation and skilled labor significantly contribute to the productivity gap between small and large firms. In addition, it is observed that the contribution of innovation to this gap is caused only by differences in quantity, while differences in returns have no effect; in the case of human capital, however, most of the effect can be attributed to increasing differences in returns between small and large firms.

 

 

Do innovation and human capital explain the productivity gap between small and large firms? (amb Castany L i Moreno R) Doc Treb IREA #2007-16

 

Abstract: Empirical evidence is compelling that large firms are more productive than small firms. The hypothesis in this paper is that the productivity differences between small and large firms are associated with two of the main determinants of a firm’s performance: the human and technological capital that firms incorporate. We suggest that the contribution of these factors in explaining the productivity-size gap might not only be due to the fact that large firms make a more extensive use of them, but also because large firms obtain higher returns from their investment in human and technological capital. The evidence  we obtain for a comprehensive sample of Spanish manufacturing firms (1990-2002) supports this hypothesis, which has important implications for the effectiveness of policies designed to improve productivity in SMEs by stimulating innovation and the use of more skilled workers.

 

 

Regional returns to physical capital: are they conditioned by educational attainment? (amb Moreno R) Doc Treb IREA #2007-18

Abstract: This paper provides novel empirical evidence of the indirect effect of educational attainment on regional economic growth, through its influence on the profitability of investment in physical capital. We test the hypothesis that the regional heterogeneity of the return to physical capital can be directly related to the existing heterogeneity in the educational attainment of workers. The results for the Spanish case support our hypothesis that the higher the educational attainment of workers the greater the returns on investment in physical capital. In fact, this effect seems to be sufficiently strong to have counterbalanced the traditional mechanism of decreasing returns to capital accumulation.

Some evidence on the aggregate profitability of human capital (amb Moreno R) PDF

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to furnish new evidence concerning the aggregate profitability of the accumulation of human capital. In addition to the traditional measure of the return to human capital, combining the information on its shadow price with the social cost of providing education allows us to confirm the profitability of human capital investments as a tool for promoting economic growth. The possibility of obtaining estimations of these effects for each Spanish region enables us to empirically evaluate the amount of heterogeneity across economies in the effects of human capital.

Una propuesta de descomposición detallada de diferencias salariales en presencia de selección (amb Motellón E) PDF

Abstract: En este trabajo se propone una descomposición detallada de las diferencias salariales medias entre dos grupos de interés en presencia de un proceso de selección relacionado con el de determinación de los salarios. La no linealidad de la función que incorpora la información del proceso de selección en la ecuación salarial impide la aplicación de la descomposición tradicional. El método propuesto permite obtener una descomposición detallada en ese tipo de modelos al derivar los pesos que permiten distribuir el efecto total correspondiente a las diferencias en características y a discriminación entre las diferentes variables del modelo. El método se ilustra con una aplicación a las diferencias salariales por tipo de contrato en España.

Discriminación salarial por tipo de contrato. Efectos en el conjunto de la distribución (amb Motellón E) PDF

Abstract: La evidencia empírica disponible para el mercado de trabajo español muestra la existencia de un diferencial salarial a favor de los individuos con contrato indefinido. Los estudios más recientes (De la Rica y Felgueroso, 1999; Davia y Herranz, 2002 y De la Rica, 2004) centran su análisis en el efecto de discriminación por tipo de contrato en la configuración de este gap salarial. Para ello emplean la técnica de descomposición de Oaxaca-Blinder, extrayendo sus conclusiones a partir de la comparación de individuos representativos. Este trabajo pretende profundiza en esta cuestión superando las limitaciones de los resultados basados en el análisis de medias. Con la hipótesis de que el diferencial salarial, y sus causas, pueden ser distintos según el nivel salarial empleamos la idea de la descomposición clásica en un contexto no paramétrico, constituyendo este un elemento novedoso en la literatura. El análisis empírico, a partir de la estimación de las funciones de densidad por el método kernel, aporta evidencia de diferencias en el salario en el conjunto de la distribución y de la existencia de discriminación, atribuible a discrepancias en las características inobservables, mediante la comparación entre la distribución salarial real y las distintas distribuciones contrafactuales extraídas de la creación de distintos escenarios de ausencia de discriminación (Jenkins, 1994).

Differences in total factor productivity across firm size. A distributional analysis (amb Castany L i Moreno R) PDF

Abstract: Most studies on productivity at a firm level have found notable heterogeneity between firms, especially between large and small firms. Such differences might be caused either by differences in the distribution of the factors determining the level of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) across firms’ size, and by differences in the return to such factors. To assess to what extent the observed differences in TFP between large and small Spanish manufacturing firms are caused by the reasons mentioned above we propose a methodology that, built on the traditional Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, focuses the attention on the entire distribution of productivity. The TFP index used in our paper guarantees comparison of the level of productivity across firms in a given year and over time, and has been computed using the information in the Encuesta sobre Estrategias Empresariales (ESEE). Results confirm that the distribution of TFP in the large firms dominates that for the small firms and that the TFP differences between small and large firms in 1994 are equally explained by differences in firm characteristics and in their returns, while in 1998, 80% of them are explained only by differences in their characteristics. The joint effect of differences in returns to R&D, human capital and industries is actually significant, suggesting possible interactions between them. In addition, the evidence suggests that small firms with the lowest TFP levels would get the most benefit if they had returns from their characteristics as high as in large firms. Important policy issue are derived in connection with the possibility of increasing the aggregate productivity of the Spanish economy considering that the average firm size in Spain is smaller than in other European countries.