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Highlights: [•] The waste generated by the suppliers of the Spanish paper industry is estimated. [•] An Economic Input Output Life Cycle Assessment Models (IO-LCA) is employed. [•] No direct relationship between impact on output and on waste generation was found. [•] The major contributors to waste generation were mining and forestry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to find out what attitudes Economics and Business students have towards sustainability and what they expect from their education in relation to the achievement of economic, social and environmental sustainability. The objective is to find out if the studies of Economics and Business favour the development of pro-sustainability attitudes, taking into account factors such as the gender of the students, the course in which they are enrolled and the economic training received before entering university. Design/methodology/approach: A survey was designed covering ecological, social, cultural, economic and political aspects. The survey was conducted among students of the Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration and Management and the Bachelor's Degree in Economics. The authors used discriminant analysis and analysis of variance to test the research hypothesis. Findings: Students are concerned about environmental problems and are aware of the need for action, but there is little consensus on the actions needed to overcome them. Some negationist traits are detected: those who rely more on technology give less importance to environmental problems and to the possibility of a major ecological catastrophe. Girls are more in favour of sustainability than boys, and students who have previously studied economics consider that their training has enabled them to evaluate the resources available and necessary to perform any job more than those who have not studied economics, regardless of their sex and year. Originality/value: Many articles have focused on the importance of sustainability in higher education, but hardly any have analysed the role of economic education in achieving sustainability. Given the importance and the proven inter-relationship between economics and sustainability, with this article, the authors contribute to fill the gap in the literature. It is necessary that current students and future professionals receive adequate economic education.

Education is the core of the factors that improved people for a better lifestyle and increases the level of society' development. Quality education is one of the most vital goals of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) due to actualizing these factors. Using relational network data envelopment analysis (DEA), which have three interrelated substages, this current paper computes the educational economy efficiency of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries bearing in mind the characteristics related to SDGs. The contribution of our study is the use of a novel approach to computing the educational economy efficiency using relational network DEA with GAMS. Even though some interesting differences reveal in the efficiency of the countries, the findings show that countries with high-efficiency scores are clustered around countries like Latvia, Slovenia, and Korea.

Over the last two decades, education privatization has become a widespread phenomenon, affecting most education systems and giving place to a consistent increase in private school enrolment globally. However, far from being a monolithic phenomenon, privatization advances through a variety of context-sensitive policy processes that translate into multiple policy outcomes. This paper aims at understanding why and how education privatization unfolds in a broad variety of settings and, to this purpose, examines the different manifestations of education privatization on the light of Cultural Political Economy (CPE). The conceptual and analytical tools provided by CPE prove to be particularly well suited to explore such a multi-faceted and multi-scalar phenomenon. CPE has helped us to capture the intersect and tension between different drivers (global and local, material and ideational) of education privatization through the evolutionary mechanisms of variation, selection and retention. On the basis of a systematic literature review methodology, encompassing 227 research papers, the article identifies and systematizes six different paths towards education privatization--understood as groups of frequently associated circumstances, mechanisms and courses of action leading to privatization. Conceived as ideal types, these different paths ultimately allow for a richer understanding of education privatization and show that the international diffusion of education privatization norms and discourses is far from producing policy convergence at a global scale.

Purpose: This study aims to analyze the main factors that might determine the extent to which Spanish organizational management educators use environmental stand-alone subjects to equip students with alternative views of business. To give a more qualitative study, this paper also provides a more detailed curriculum analysis from a double point of view: first, the authors analyze the environmental integration in curricula by means of the presence of environmental embedded subjects. On the other hand, the authors analyze the main environmental topics covered by curriculum of Spanish universities. Design/Methodology/Approach: A Web content analysis and non-parametric mean comparison statistics of the curricula of undergraduate degrees at all universities in Spain was conducted. Findings: One of the main conclusions of this paper is that public universities in Spain are more likely to require an environmental course than private universities. Other factors, such as size, political orientation or chairs/research institutes are not statistically explanatory of environmental education. Another important finding is that environmental training in management courses offered by Spanish universities is still relatively underdeveloped. Comparatively, the authors found that the most common method of teaching environmental issues in Spain is by means of embedded subjects (horizontal integration) in comparison with stand-alone subjects (vertical integration) as a response of the necessity of providing a systemic and holistic approach toward environmental aspects. From this perspective, the main topics covered in curriculum are environmental management, sustainable tourism, environmental economy or environmental impact. Originality/Value: There is a lack of empirical research focuses on analyzing determinant factors to environmental education in management undergraduate curricula of Spanish universities. Indeed, most of previous studies provide a descriptive review of environmental courses in management education.

This paper proposes a model of competence development required of graduates at work which suggests that universities make a difference when they add value to their students. They add value by ensuring that their modes of teaching and learning, and assessment positively enhance the competencies of their students which are important in the labor market. Our results have clear implications for policy in the Bologna process. One of the main challenges facing higher education institutions in Europe is to transform their current pedagogical practices--the lecture continues to be the dominant teaching method--into competence-based teaching as a response of universities to labor market needs. In this paper, econometric evidence shows that innovative methodologies used by Spanish universities play a key role in competence development. This is consistent with the view that education raises productivity; finding that refutes some theories which suggest that education may be no more than a screening device which allows employers to identify the more able potential employees from the rest. Besides the importance of formal academic institutions, firms appear to be sources of learning and skill formation as well.

This paper examines the determination of wage rates for health professionals using three well known, and commonly used, econometric techniques: ordinary least squares, instrumental variables, and Heckman's method. The data come from a graduate survey and the analysis focuses on a regional labor market, due to nationwide information on salaries is absent in Spain. After estimating different wage equations, the results suggest that OLS estimates are preferable. The findings show an important wage premium for medical doctors relative to nurses, but also a wage advantage for workers who are civil servants and a gender wage-gap that favors men. Although the expansion of higher education in Spain has reduced social inequalities in access, the main policy implication from this paper is that social class differences can still persist at the degree level--in the choice of degree--if students of higher socioeconomic status get a place at university in a degree of higher earnings, a fact that is corroborated in this study.

In a recent paper, Garcia-Mainar and Montuenga-Gomez [Garcia-Mainar, I. & Montuenga-Gomez, V. M. (2005). Education returns of wage earners and self-employed workers: Portugal vs. Spain. "Economics of Education Review, 24"(2), 161-170] apply the generalized IV model of Hausman and Taylor to estimate education returns of wage earners and the self-employed in Portugal and in Spain. Our examination reveals several problems which relate to the validity and documentation of the instrumental variables, as well as the robustness of the results. (Contains 2 tables.)

This is a response to [Jordahl, H., Poutvaara, P., & Tuomala, J. (2009). Comment on education returns of wage earners and self-employed workers. "Economics of Education Review" 28]. We acknowledge that econometrics have improved since the time our original paper was written, so that the choice of accurate instruments is now more deeply founded. However, in this note, we argue that the differences in the estimates obtained by Jordahl et al. (2009) has been generated not only because the "sensibility of HT estimators to the choice of instrumental variables", but also to the estimation metholology followed by them, in which rarely changing variables are considered to be time-varying.

There is increasing interest in the role academic institutions can play as catalysts of change within the territories in which they are located, by contributing proactively to shaping socio-economic development processes. This role for universities takes us beyond the typical focus on knowledge transfer activities or broad economic impacts. It highlights in particular the contributions of 'softer' disciplines such as management, economics, the humanities and public policy. This paper explores this proactive strategic role for academia in regional development by means of an analysis of a particular case of institutional entrepreneurship in the Basque Country region of Spain. The telling of such stories is critical if we are to reach a better understanding of the impact universities can have in their regions beyond a quantitative, market-focused analysis.

Guidance has a role to play in helping older workers to lead meaningful and fruitful lives; inside, outside, on the edge of the labour market, or in voluntary work with examples from two very different European countries: Denmark and Spain. This paper aims to draw attention to older workers guidance from an economic policy approach. It will be demonstrated that there is a need for more policy making for older workers' guidance in both countries.

This paper reports an examination of the economic contribution to Spain provided by sport hunting. This paper identifies the main stakeholders, the overall expenses and contribution to the Spanish Gross Domestic Product (GDP), tax revenue, and the number of jobs supported. The results confirm that hunting can be considered a key economic activity for the Spanish environment and primary sector, and a measure combatting rural depopulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this research paper is to analyse the internship expectations gap amongst the three main internship stakeholders: employers (company supervisors), academic supervisors and students, in an effort to detect the variables which could assist closing the gap between students' perceptions and the labour market employers and then, between the academic supervisors in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the students. This paper analyses firstly, the variables that determine students' perceptions and overall satisfaction with the internships. After, it examines the differences with the employers' expectations of the interns' performance. Finally, this paper analyses the variables that determine the academic supervisors in HEIs grading of the interns with the overall satisfaction about the students' internship performance. This research serves as a guide for the improvement, refinement and expansion of university internship programme design together with internship best practices definition to close the expectation gaps between the HEIs and the Business World. Design/methodology/approach: Two quantitative surveys were designed to measure students' and employers' perceptions of the internships. Additionally, one semi-structured qualitative interview is performed to deepen understanding of each student's perception of the internship. The authors perform a triangular analysis of students' perceptions and employers' (company supervisors) and academic supervisors' expectations. A T-test analyses the differences between cognitive, transversal and social skills developed in an internship as perceived by students and employers (company supervisors). Finally, linear regressions are run both to identify the variables that determine the students' internship overall satisfaction and also detect the variables that determine the final internship grade assigned by the academic supervisor from the university. Findings: The authors highlight the following interesting findings. While the students feel that the internships are highly useful and perceive that they were fully integrated into the company's culture, they also state that they learn how to develop their transversal skills much more than the cognitive skills learnt in the whole study programme in their degrees. In parallel, employers (company supervisors), for their part, perceive that students have strong social skills and adjust perfectly to the company's culture, but expected the students to have more creativity and cognitive skills. Finally, the academic supervisor's value the students' written skills together with the company's supervisor valuation more than the students' transversal skills. These main expectation gaps detected must be solved to improve internship outcomes and closing the gaps between the Higher Education and Business World. These findings consolidate existing research and add more quantitative results contextualised to Spanish Higher Education Institutions. Research limitations/implications: The limitations of this research are that it only embeds a HEIs in Spain and the sample should be enlarged with more universities not only from Spain but also from around the world. Thus, the findings in this research can be used to improve the internship programme in this HEIs and its best practices, however they cannot be extrapolated to other HEIs still. Nevertheless, other HEIs can learn from this experience. Regarding the surveys these can be reviewed and homogenised for the student's perception items to be more aligned with the company supervisor's expectations and the academic supervisor's requirements of an internship. As implications, the authors have divided them into theoretical and practical. From the theoretical point of view, there needs to be more research about internships done in Economics, Law and Business Degrees field. From the practical point of view, the authors highlight several implications. First, HEIs must develop internship programmes further and promote the three stakeholders, employer–academic supervisor–student communication more fluid. This communication flow will maximize and align both employer and academic supervisor expectations about the students' performance in their internships. This way, student perceptions of their internship experience will improve and align further. Second, internships must be promoted in the Economics and Business Degrees as they are a unique opportunity for students to apply cognitive, transversal and social skills acquired in their study programmes, developing themselves as future professionals. Third, there is a growing need for HEIs to strengthen links with different companies, not only to teach students the skills employers' value but also to ensure that graduates are aware of what is happening in the labour market. Finally, through the internships developing further, academic supervisors must open their assessment to the students' professional skills (critical thinking, creativity, capacity to solve short term problems efficiently,) aligning with labour market needs. Originality/value: This paper is significant because it shows the growing need for universities to strengthen links with a variety of companies (Business World). Internships are becoming compulsory, having assigned a high percentage of European Credits Transfer System (ECTS) credits to students' Grade Point Average (GPA) in Economics, Law and Business. This research work shows HEIs should improve internship design to close the gap between Higher Education's supply of graduates and the business world's demand for adequately prepared professionals. The results in this paper can help the academic actors start improving the internship design and best practices definition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Banks are the backbone of the financial sector and catalysts in the economic development of any country. Current changes in their global business ecosystem make knowledge of about the fund-supplying and fund-demanding parties of the society a key resource for the fulfillment of banks’ investment and saving functions. This paper addresses the relationship between the performance and a learning culture that is supported by knowledge processes within the organization. Given the relevance of this subject for organizations from most knowledge-intensive domains, this research has focused on the Spanish banking sector. Using a structural equation model, feedback received from 215 employees from 142 individual branches from a major banking institution in Spain is studied. The results of the data analysis show that in addition to maximizing on what is already known about the customer base, employees’ learning about the potential new stakeholders and also about the internal strategies, tools, and techniques is directly related to the bank's performance, which, in turn, influences the economic recovery and socio-economic development. Results support that an active pursuit of learning within the context of the organization is required for banks to remain competitive in the dynamic, global business ecosystem, where international, national, and local banking sectors operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of think tanks in Spain has been growing in the last few years with an equally increasing number of social and grassroots movements. This article offers content analysis results from a selection of eight Spanish think tanks in the digital press during a seven-year period, adding new conclusions to previous literature for the same period. Not only does this research explore the appearance on the media, but also the type of mentions and authorship of the articles and blogs included in the digital press, contributing to a deeper study of think tanks. The objective of this study is to analyse the limited presence of Spanish think tanks in media outlets and whether their appearance is ideologically motivated. The article built a constructed week sampling and followed a content analysis methodology to gather quantitative and qualitative elements from the selected sampling (n=1,101). The paper concludes that the presence of think tanks in the Spanish digital press is limited, causing not only a lack of knowledge of their existence but also raising questions about how they try to impact on the policymaking process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Estudios Andaluces is the property of Revista de Estudios Andaluces and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Based on an analysis of the life trajectories of 2510 conscripts and their families from a Spanish rural area in the period 1835-1977, this paper studies the development of the fertility transition in relation to height using bivariate analyses. The use of heights is an innovative perspective of delving into the fertility transition and social transformation entailed. The results confirm that the men with a low level of biological well-being (related to low socio-economic groups) were those who started to control their fertility, perhaps due to the effect that increased average family size had on their budget. The children of individuals who controlled their fertility were taller than the children of other families. Therefore, the children of parents who controlled their fertility experienced the largest intergenerational increase in height (approximately 50% higher). This increase could be due to the consequence of a greater investment in children (Becker's hypothesis) or a greater availability of resources for the whole family (resource dilution hypothesis).

This paper examines the determination of wage rates for health professionals using three well known, and commonly used, econometric techniques: ordinary least squares, instrumental variables, and Heckman’s method. The data come from a graduate survey and the analysis focuses on a regional labor market, due to nationwide information on salaries is absent in Spain. After estimating different wage equations, the results suggest that OLS estimates are preferable. The findings show an important wage premium for medical doctors relative to nurses, but also a wage advantage for workers who are civil servants and a gender wage-gap that favors men. Although the expansion of higher education in Spain has reduced social inequalities in access, the main policy implication from this paper is that social class differences can still persist at the degree level—in the choice of degree—if students of higher socioeconomic status get a place at university in a degree of higher earnings, a fact that is corroborated in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In connection with the housing market, which is presently raising a great deal of concern among the general public, this paper investigates regional housing prices in Spain using variable co-integration techniques. It analyzes the asymmetric behavior in real house prices among the Spanish regions focusing on the study of the long-term relationships over time. This paper raises an important question of the national averages masking important regional asymmetries. Results indicate evidence of co-integration, which suggests a broad grouping of regions based on physical proximity or similar economic characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to OCA theory, the creation of the EMU reinforces the role of wage flexibility as an adjustment instrument alternative to the exchange rate in order to mitigate the negative effects of asymmetric shocks. This paper uses the case of Spain as the frame of reference within the EMU – in order to ensure data homogeneity – and examines wage flexibility in the Spanish provinces using both nonparametric and semiparametric techniques. The main result of the paper is that the labour market appears to be quite rigid and, therefore, adverse shocks could have serious consequences in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents developments in the editorial section of the "Spanish Economic Review," as of March 2004. List of new editors; Guidelines for submission of manuscripts; Performance of the journal from 2001 to 2003.

Abstract: In this paper, Ciccone's ( ) approach is applied to the Spanish case in 2011 but by estimating it using local labor markets (LLMs) instead of NUTS‐2 or NUTS‐3 regions. It is especially relevant in the case of Spain because the NUTS‐3 (provinces) are large regions in comparison with other cases in Europe. From a sample of income taxpayers published by the Spanish Fiscal Studies Institute, we derive figures on average wages by worker on the scale of LLMs. We argue that working at this level of spatial disaggregation is more in line with the idea of externalities from agglomerations, which are generated on a local scale. We can also observe intra‐regional heterogeneity and how the urban wage premium changes along the entire distribution of cities, including small‐medium size urban areas or rural areas. The empirical analysis is based on several estimation strategies, namely, ordinary least squares, two‐stages least squares, quantile regressions (QR), and instrumental variable quantile regressions (IVQR) estimators; they all find a significantly positive effect of agglomeration in the conditional mean of wages. This result can be estimated along the conditional distribution of wages. According to the QR and IVQR estimates, important variations are found along the distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Plan F of Great Britain's Women's Budget Group (UKWBG) and the Scottish Women's Budget Group (SWBG) for gender equality in Spain that will lead to sustainable development. Topics include negative impact of austerity policies on women empowerment and well-being; development of a Briefing Paper by organizations to promote women rights and economic recovery; and several aspects of the paper such as reverse cuts, establishment of equal pay and access to affordable care.

In their reply to our comment, Garcia-Mainar and Montuenga-Gomez [Garcia-Mainar, I., & Montuenga-Gomez, V. M. (2009). A response to the comment on education returns of wage earners and self-employed workers. "Economics of Education Review"] did not address our fundamental criticism that they have not provided the information necessary to replicate their study.

In this paper, we examine the extent to which the relationship between energy consumption and real gross domestic product can be affected by an effective economic development policy based on industrialization. The SpanishStabilization and Liberalization Planof 1959 is regarded as a “natural experiment” that is especially interesting for our purposes. To explore long-run causality and possible changes in its direction, we have exploited statistical information for a long period (1900–2008). We applied a moving-window regression procedure based on the augmented vector autoregressive methodology of Toda and Yamamoto (1995). Causality results are highly sensitive to the industrialization process. For the sub-period preceding the development policy, we consistently found greater support for the “conservation hypothesis”. This contrasts sharply with the set of results obtained from the data belonging to the subsequent sub-period, where evidence is in favor of the “growth hypothesis”. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Increasingly, central governments approach contentious natural resource allocation problems by devolving partial decision-making responsibility to local stakeholders. This paper conceptualizes devolution as a three-stage process and uses a simulation model calibrated to real-world conditions to analyze devolution in Spain's Upper Guadiana Basin. The Spanish national government has proposed spending over a billion euros to reverse a 30 year decline in groundwater levels. We investigate how the government can most effectively allocate this money to improve water levels by utilizing its power to set the structure of a local negotiation process. Using a numerical Nash model of local bargaining, we find that if the national government creates appropriate incentives, local bargaining can produce water stabilization. The actual water levels that will emerge are highly dependent on the central government's decisions about the budget available to local stakeholders and the default policy, which will be influenced by the relative value the government places on various financial and environmental outcomes. Our paper concludes by determining the relationship between these relative valuations and the government's preferences over water levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the performance of provincial Spanish wages during the period 1985-2003. Using both traditional and recent analytical approaches, related to spatial econometrics, non-parametric and semi-parametric techniques, the paper reveals that a process of wage convergence has taken place. However, this does not preclude that mobility within the provincial wage distribution is small. The paper also shows that the degree of provincial wage flexibility is very low, which is in accordance with the institutional framework of wage formation in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Martín de Azpilcueta and his fellow Spanish Scholastics writing and teaching at the University of Salamanca during Spain's Golden Age are rightly pointed to by historians of economic thought as being major contributors toward, if not outright founders of modern economic theory. Among these is the theory of time-preference for which Azpilcueta has repeatedly been given the credit for discovering. However, this discovery is a curious one given how the same man, Azpilcueta, condemned usury in general during his whole life. If Azpilcueta did in fact discover this theory and fully understand its implications, we would reasonably expect him to have questioned his support for the ban on charging an interest on a loan. This paper, therefore, challenges the claim that Azpilcueta understood and revived time-preference theory and shows how his understanding was much more nuanced, and, at times, inconsistent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents abstracts of various research papers related to statistics and economics. The article "Semiparametric Estimation of a Duration model," proposes a model to consider the logarithm of the integrated baseline hazard function as constant. Another research titled "Break Point Estimation and Spurious Rejections with Endogenous Unit Root Tests," examines the accuracy of break point estimation. The paper "Innovational Outlier Unit Root Tests With an Endogenously Determined Break in Level," which is proposed to be corrected through a simple modification of the test procedure. The research titled "Unionization and the Pattern of Nonunion Wages: Evidence for the UK," discusses the possible implications of unionization. Another research paper discusses gender bias in labor employment in Spain under the heading "Promotions in the Spanish Labour Market: Differences by Gender." Its findings indicate that women receive fewer promotions than men with the same qualifications due to differential treatment in the market.

This paper contributes to the growing literature that analyses the Spanish publishing performance in Economics throughout the 1990s. Several bibliometric indicators are used in order to provide Spanish rankings (of both institutions and individual authors) based on Econlit journals. Further, lists of the ten most influential authors and articles over that period, in terms of citations, are reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to carry out some empirical investigation about the link between sectoral structure and real convergence for the case of Spain. First, this paper pursues a descriptive analysis by means of decomposing the variation of productivity in a share effect and a growth effect. This approach is complemented with a panel data estimation. It is found that, despite some tendency toward sectoral homogenization, there are still large productivity differentials among sectors and regions. Other basic findings point out the reallocation of inputs from agriculture to services as a relevant force explaining convergence among Spanish regions in the last decades. There is also some evidence of a catching-up effect in the services sectors, whereas this effect is not detected in the industry sector. (JEL R10) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Introduction: While previous research already exists on the impact of the current economic crisis and whether it leads to an increase in mortality by suicide, our objective in this paper is to determine if the increase in the suicide rate in Catalonia, Spain from 2010 onwards has been statistically significant and whether it is associated with rising unemployment. Methods: We used hierarchical mixed models, separately considering the crude death rate of suicides for municipalities with more than and less than 10,000 inhabitants as dependent variables both unstratified and stratified according to gender and/or age group. Results: In municipalities with 10,000 or more inhabitants there was an increase in the relative risk of suicide from 2009 onwards. This increase was only statistically significant for working-aged women (16-64 years). In municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants the relative risk showed a decreasing trend even after 2009. In no case did we find the unemployment rate to be associated (statistically significant) with the suicide rate. Conclusions: The increase in the suicide rate from 2010 in Catalonia was not statistically significant as a whole, with the exception of working-aged women (16-64 years) living in municipalities with 10,000 or more inhabitants. We have not found this increase to be associated with rising unemployment in any of the cases. Future research into the effects of economic recessions on suicide mortality should take into account inequalities by age, sex and size of municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Spatial Economic Analysis is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The construction of large renewable energy projects is characterized by the great uncertainties associated with their administrative complexity and their constructive characteristics. For proper management, it is necessary to undertake a thorough project risk assessment prior to construction. The work presented in this paper is based on a hierarchical risk structure identified by a group of experts, from which a Probabilistic Fuzzy Sets with Analysis Hierarchy Process (PFSAHP) was applied. This probabilistic analysis approach used expert opinion based on the Monte Carlo Method that allows for extracting more information from the original data. In addition, the coherence of the experts’ opinions is assessed using a novel parameter known as Confidence Level, which allows for adjusting the opinions of experts and weighting their judgments regarding impact and probability according to their coherence. This model has the advantage of offering a risk analysis in the early stages of the management of renewable energy projects in which there is no detailed information. This model is also more accurate than the classic fuzzy methodology when working with complete distribution functions, whilst it avoids the loss of information that results from the traditional mathematical operations with Fuzzy numbers. To test the model, it was applied to a 250 MW photovoltaic solar plant construction project located in southeast of Spain (Region of Murcia). As a result of the application of the proposed method, risk rankings are obtained with respect to the cost, the time, the scope and from a general point of view of the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a dataset of 3540 economists working in 2007 in 125 of the best academic centers in 22 countries, this paper presents some evidence on spatial mobility patterns in Spain and other countries conditional on some personal, department, and country characteristics. There are productivity and other reasons for designing a scientific policy with the aims of attracting foreign talent (brain gain), minimizing the elite brain drain, and recovering nationals who have earned a Ph.D. or have spent some time abroad (brain circulation). Our main result is that Spain has more brain gain, more brain circulation and less brain drain than comparable large, continental European countries, i.e., Germany, France, and Italy, where economists have similar opportunities for publishing their research in English or in their own languages. We suggest that these results can be mostly explained by the governance changes introduced in a number of Spanish institutions in 1975–1990 by a sizable contingent of Spanish economists coming back home after attending graduate school abroad. These initiatives were also favored by the availability of resources to finance certain research-related activities, including international Ph.D. programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The main aims of this paper are to analyse the monetary value of informal care time using different techniques and to identify significant variables associated with the number of caregiving hours. Data and methods: A multicentre study in two Spanish regions in adult caregivers was conducted. A total sample of 604 people was available. A multivariate analysis was performed to identify the variables associated with the number of hours of caregiving time. In the monetary valuation of informal care provided, three approaches were used: replacement cost method, opportunity cost and contingent valuation (willingness to pay and willingness to accept). Results: The main determinants of the amount of time of informal care provided were age, gender, the level of care receiver´s dependence and the professional care services received (at home and out of home). The value estimated for informal care time ranges from EUROS 80,247 (replacement cost method) to EUROS 14,325 (willingness to pay), with intermediate values of EUROS 27,140 and EUROS 29,343 (opportunity cost and willingness to accept, respectively). Several sensitivity analyses were performed over the base cases, confirming the previous results. Conclusions: Time of informal care represents a great social value, regardless of the applied technique. However, the results can differ strongly depending on the technique chosen. Therefore, the choice of technique of valuation is not neutral. Among the determinants of informal care time, the professional care received at home has a complementary character to informal care, while the formal care outside the home has a substitute character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to study the relationship between internal migration and Spanish regional convergence between 1972 and 1998, a period between the mass emigration prior to the 1970s and the mass immigration of the end of the twentieth century. The main results indicate that internal migration led to a fall in Spanish regional development gaps. However, internal migration did not lead to the disappearance of these gaps in the long term. Some regions will always receive workers, others will send them out and a third group will experience a sequence of migration reversals. The econometric methodology used allows us to identify structural breaks and to differentiate between long- and short-term effects. This approach enables predictions to be made for internal migration flows in the long term in the absence of shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the causes of legal political rent extraction by using a direct measure of it, namely, local top politicians' wages. In particular, we investigate whether local politicians' incentives to extract rents by setting their own wages are influenced by the degree of political competition and voter information. We use a sample of the largest Spanish municipalities over the years 2008-2010. The results indicate that weaker political competition and lesser voter information are related to more rent extraction. In an additional analysis, we show that higher wages do not ensure better financial management. These findings confirm that when politicians can set their own salaries, higher wages do not mean better management, but they are just political rents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

38.5% of the Spanish working population reports pain, 5.1% severe pain. Pain is associated with a high utilization of health services, but, more importantly, with a significant reduction in the ability to continue their work performance. Interventions to minimize the significant costs inflicted by pain should be implemented. Objective: The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the epidemiology of pain in the Spanish working population and to investigate the incremental costs of the different levels of pain on medical costs and productivity losses. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study of costs of pain in the Spanish working population from a societal perspective using data from a national representative survey. Results: Data from the 9919 respondents were analyzed. The prevalence of reported pain was 38.5%: 21.9% mild or very mild; 11.5% moderate; 5.1% severe or extreme. Increased self-reported pain was independently associated with significant increases in direct and indirect costs. Those reporting severe or extreme pain showed excess annual costs of €5118.97 per case, being 85% indirect costs. Conclusions: Spain is paying a heavy price for the high prevalence of pain in its working population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to understand the reasons that have led to the use of the stock option plans (SOPs) to reward Spanish CEOs and discuss whether the popularity of this type of incentive can be attributed to the power of the CEO in the Board of Directors. To this end, the study, besides analysing how the level of monitoring and uncertainty influences the use of CEO stock option plans (SOPs) in the 100 firms with the highest stock market capitalisation listed on the Madrid Stock Exchange for the period 1999-2001, it also aims to determine the influence of the level of uncertainty in the design of SOPs. We used both logit models and difference-of-means statistical techniques to analyse the data. The results reveal that 1) the use of SOPs increases as a) the level of monitoring decreases, and b) uncertainty increases; and 2) conventional stock options granted at the money or in the money become more frequent as the uncertainty increases. In light of these results, there is reason to support the approach to the managerial power view and, therefore, to think that in some cases CEOs use SOPs to extract rents from shareholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most innovative elements of the Water-Framework Directive (WFD) is the important role that economic analysis is assigned in achieving its environmental objectives. In Spain, a great effort has been put forth by river basin agencies to diagnose the current state of water bodies and to implement the economic tools and principles required by the Directive. However, there have been a number of shortcomings in the way the economic analysis was designed and applied (as well as a significant delay in meeting the WFD's deadlines). The objective of this paper is to critically review the implementation of the economics of the WFD in Spain and to make suggestions on how to deal with the problems that have been encountered. Some of the more important shortcomings are that the characterization of water uses is mostly descriptive and lacks prospective analysis; that analysis of the potential for costs recovery of water services has incorrectly assumed that the financial costs of water provision are completely covered by the payment of the current legal tariffs; and that environmental and resource costs have not been included in the analysis for the selection of mitigation measures. The main reason for these problems is that water policy-makers and managers were unprepared for, and inexperienced with economic analysis. The most important recommendation of this paper to improve future revisions of the River Basin Management Plans is to strengthen the links between water planners and academics, moving towards evidence-based policy-making. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Rationale and objectives: Economic theory classifies an intervention as socially beneficial if the total Willingness to Pay (WTP) of those who gain exceeds the total Willingness to accept (WTA) of those who are harmed. This paper examines the differences in health system users’ valuation of a health care service in primary care setting based on the WTP and WTA perspectives, discussing the impact of personal and service variables, including risk attitudes, on these disparities. Method: Six hundred and sixty two subjects who asked for care in health centres in the Region of Madrid (Spain) were interviewed, using the contingent valuation method to estimate WTP and WTA. Patient sociodemographic characteristics, health needs, satisfaction with the service and risk attitude and behaviour under risk (measured by self-reported scales and lottery games respectively) were collected. Generalised Linear Models were used to estimate the association between the explanatory variables and the WTA/WTP ratio. Results: We obtained the WTA/WTP ratio for 570 subjects (mean 1.66 CI 95%: 1.53–1.79; median 1, interquartile range 1–2). People with higher education or in high social groups expressed WTA values closest to WTP. The opposite occurred in patients with the greatest health needs or who were born abroad. Self-reported expression of risk aversion appeared also related to increases in the WTA/WTP ratio. Satisfaction with the service evaluated was the most influential factor in the WTA/WTP ratio. Conclusion: Health need, difficulty in obtaining substitutes and satisfaction with the service could serve for profiling people averse to loss for health care services in primary care setting. Self-reported expression of risk aversion could also be related to increases in the WTA/WTP ratio. This would mean that these characteristics should be taken into account both in the design and implementation of new healthcare interventions, as in the making decision for disinvestment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper provides a bridge between the literature examining the economic impact of air services and the literature analyzing the determinants of bilateral FDI flows. I estimate a gravity equation for the determinants of bilateral FDI flows between the Spanish region of Catalonia, home to the airport of Barcelona, and countries of all over the world for the period 2002-2015. I find evidence that the reduction in travel time due to the availability of nonstop flights scheduled with sufficient frequency increases the amount of FDI due to the enhanced transmission of information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]