Amadeo Fuenmayor

Innovation and creativity in the automobile industry: environmental proposals and initiatives

Environmental issues are demanding deep changes, both by governments as well as by the private sector through strategic management, across all sectors. This is particularly the case in the automotive services sector, where the need to reduce CO2 emissions has become a central target. In this paper, the researchers seek to evaluate these innovative initiatives. For this purpose, the main tax measures are analysed as well as the strategies being developed by automobile companies in the context of the European Union in general and Spain in particular. It is found that different public policies and managerial initiatives are being used to achieve this goal.

Caring for older people: an analysis of the small business sector

This study aims to analyse the small business sector in Spain for institutional care. In the Autonomous Region of Valencia, this sector is represented by non‐profit institutions. Our results show that non‐profit centres easily fulfil the legal requirements, especially with regard to personnel. They are generally of high quality and receive a large amount of volunteer work and funds from donators. Small business centres show an accurate daily cost per user of up to €56.48, a substantially lower rate than those offered by large centres.

Promoting sustainable environmental practices amongst automobile consumers: an evaluation of the impacts of pursuing innovations in tax regulations

The growing importance of environmental sustainability has resulted in governments pursuing innovative regulatory changes in order to achieve this goal. The aim of this paper is to evaluate critically whether pursuing innovative regulations in the realm of environmental taxation have elicited more sustainable practices amongst automobile consumers in Spain. The finding is that the tax innovations of the Spanish government that seek to internalise externalities, namely the registration tax and fuel tax, but not the annual circulation tax, are leading automobile consumers to pursue more environmentally sustainable practices, and are also resulting in the automotive sector itself pursuing innovations in the form of strategic alliances to increase the level of product and process innovations so as to achieve greater environmental sustainability.

Efectos de un programa de eliminación de sujeciones físicas sobre personas mayores con demencia en residencias

OBJECTIVE To analyse the results of removing physical restraints from elderly patients with dementia living in nursing homes. This objective is part of a wider process of change in residential care. METHODS Quasi-experimental study conducted in two residences from May 2010 to May 2012. Information was collected at 7 time points and longitudinal analyses were performed. After training staff, the physical restraints in El Puig centre were phased out, while in the Conarda centre, restraints were still applied to elderly people. The main variables studied were: falls, psychotropic medication prescriptions, different indicators of mental impairment, and degree of dependence (Norton, NPI, Mini-mental, Tinetti, Barthel). RESULTS In the El Puig centre all the physical restraints were removed. A slight improvement was seen in the number of falls, and their consequences. The ANOVA showed significant improvements in the centre that removed restraints in prescribing psychotropic medications, cognitive impairment, and behavioural changes. DISCUSSION It is shown that removing physical restraints do not cause negative effects as regards the number of falls, and also positively affects the welfare and independence of elderly people (through changes in behaviour and mental impairment). Furthermore, it is demonstrated that this program must be accompanied by the reduction and control of medicines (withdrawal of the number of psychotropic prescriptions).

Quasi-markets Targets and the Evaluation of Nursing-home Funding in the Valencian Region

Spanish long term care is in danger, therefore we propose a change in the nursing home funding sys¬tem. We use as an example the extremely complex nursing home financing system of Valencian Region. In this region, there are many funding mechanisms: two types of public subsidies, two different acces¬sibility plans, a voucher scheme and a cash benefit approach related to residential service. We evaluate these methods through the quasi-market theory. We find that these approaches have negative impact on equity, efficiency and freedom of choice and we propose a new, homogeneous financing method for all nursing homes through voucher.

Inequality Effects of Inflation: The 'Bracket Creep' Effect in the Spanish Income Tax System

The aim of this research is to analyse how inflation induced erosions of the nominally defined items of the tax rules of the Spanish income tax system may change distributional and revenue generating properties of income taxes. We further investigate the effects of the tax reform carried out in 2003. Although the Spanish government claimed that this reform would reduce tax liabilities, this is not so clear as many argue that this reform only offset the effects of inflation suffered by the population since 1999. Using the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) data set we aim to shed some light on the above issues through microsimulation techniques. Furthermore, we will also measure the inequality effects caused by the fact that the Spanish tax system does not automatically adjust the main fiscal elements to account for inflation.