Academic Position & Contact
Professor of Applied Economics
Coordinator of the research group “Regional Quantitative Analysis” — AQR
Member of the Research Institute in Applied Economics — IREA
Phone: +34934037041
FAX: +34934021821
Email: elopez@ub.edu
Human capital threshold effects in the
internationalisation-productivity growth relationship - evidence from Spanish
regions, Empirical Economics Letters,
7: 1083-1089 (2008, with Serrano G and Requena F)
Does human capital stimulate investment in physical
capital?: Evidence from a cost system framework, Economic Modelling, 25: 1295-1305 (2008,
with Moreno R)
Firm size and the entire distribution of wages. A semiparametric approach, Applied Economics Letters, 15: 427-430 (2008, with El-Attar M)
Returns to local and transport infrastructure under
regional spillovers, International Regional
Science Review, 30:
47-71 (2007, with Moreno
R)
Regional
heterogeneity in the private and social returns to human capital, Spatial Economic Analysis, 2: 23-44
(2007, with Moreno R)
Complementarity between local knowledge and
internationalisation in regional technological progress, Journal of Regional Science, 46: 901-929 (2006, with Serrano G and Requena F)
Empirical
Growth Models with Spatial Effects, Papers
in Regional Science, 85: 177-198 (2006, with Fingleton
B)
The
geographical distribution of unemployment in
Breaking
the panels: An application to the GDP per capita, Econometrics Journal,
8: 159-175 (2005, with Carrión JLl
and del Barrio T)
Regional Externalities and Growth: Evidence from European Regions, Journal
of Regional Science, 44: 43-73 (2004, with Vayá E and Artís M)
Evidence
on the Purchasing Power Parity in a Panel of Cities, Applied Economics,
36: 961-966 (2004, with Carrión JLl and del Barrio T)
On
the Effectiveness of Private and Public Capital, Applied Economics 35:
727-740 (2003,
with
New Evidence on international R&D spillovers,
human capital and productivity in the OECD, Economics Letters, 77: 41-45
(2002, with del Barrio T and Serrano G)
The Regional Distribution of Spanish Unemployment. A Spatial Analysis, Papers in Regional Science, 81: 365-389
(2002, with del Barrio T and Artís
M)
Public
Infrastructure, Private Capital and the Performance of Manufactures, Regional Science and Urban Economics,
32: 97-121 (2002, with
Regional
Economic Dynamics and Convergence in the EU, The Annals of Regional Science, 33: 343-370 (1999, with Vayá E, Mora AJ and Suriñach J)
Evidence
on the complex link between infrastructures and regional growth, International Journal of Development and
Planning Literature, 12: 81-109 (1998, with Moreno R, Artis
M and Suriñach J)
Is
There an Homogeneous Spanish Mediterranean Axis?, Papers in Regional Science, 76: 91-113
(1997, with Artís M and Suriñach
J)
Cambios en la
distribución salarial en España, 1995-2002. Efectos a través del tipo de
contrato, Revista de Economía Aplicada
(forthcoming, with Motellón E and El-Attar M)
Comment
to "Geographic Neutrality: Measuring International Trade Integration"
by 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, with Serrano G and Requena F)
Heterogeneidad en las distribuciones salariales entre
las regiones españolas, Papeles de Economía Española 107: 214-230 (2006, with El-Attar M)
Externalidades entre
economías en crecimiento. Competencia vs cooperación
regional, Papeles y Memorias de
Capital humano, apertura y crecimiento. Evidencia
para la industria de las regiones españolas, Economía Industrial 357: 175-187 (2004, with
Serrano G, García JR and Requena
F)
La distribución provincial
del desempleo en España, Papeles de Economía Española 93: 195-208 (2002,
with del Barrio T and Artís M)
Convergencia Regional en
Increasing
returns and the distribution of manufacturing productivity in the EU regions,
in Arestis P, Baddeley M
and McCombie JSL (Eds.), Economic Growth: New Directions in Theory and Policy, Edward Elgar. (2007, with Fingleton B)
Infrastructure
investments as a tool for regional development policy: Lessons from the Spanish
evidence, in Artis M, Banerjee
A and Marcellino M (Eds.), The Central and Eastern European Countries and the European Union, Cambridge University Press. (2006, with
Economic
Growth and Spatial Externalities, in L. Anselin, R. Florax, and S. Rey (Eds.), Advances in Spatial Econometrics, Springer-Verlag,
External Effects and Costs of Production, in L. Anselin,
R. Florax, and S. Rey (Eds.), Advances in Spatial Econometrics, Springer-Verlag,
Level shifts in a panel data based unit root test: an application to the
rate of unemployment, in Levine DK and Zame W (Eds.) Proceedings
of the 2002 North American Summer Meetings of the Econometric Society: Economic
Theory,
Diferencias
regionales en el rendimiento privado y social del capital humano, in Villaverde J (Ed.) Competitividad
Regional en
Crecimiento y convergencia regional en España. ¿Qué
hemos estado midiendo?, in Cabrer B (Ed.), Diez
años de Análisis Regional: El Proyecto Hispalink,
Ed. Mundi-Prensa, Madrid. (2001, with
Vaya E and Moreno R)
El papel de las regiones mediterráneas en la
evolución de las disparidades regionales en
Análisis Económico Regional. Nociones básicas de
Human capital and
regional wage gaps (with 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 (with Motellon E and El-Attar M) WP 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.
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? (with Castany L and
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? (with
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 (with
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 (with
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).
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.