Esther Vayá

Growth and Externalities Across Economies: An Empirical Analysis Using Spatial Econometrics

Recent theoretical models of economic growth have emphasised the role of external effects on the accumulation of factors of production. Although most of the literature has considered the externalities across firms within a region, in this paper we go a step further and consider the possibility that these externalities cross the barriers of regional economies. We assess the role of these external effects in explaining growth and economic convergence. We present a simple growth model, which includes externalities across economies, developing a methodology for testing their existence and estimating their strength. In our view, spatial econometrics is naturally suited to an empirical consideration of these externalities. We obtain evidence on the presence of significant externalities both across Spanish and European regions.

How Important to a City Are Tourists and Daytrippers? The Economic Impact of Tourism on The City of Barcelona

The authors devise a multidimensional methodology that quantifies the impact of tourism on urban economies. Tourism is a ‘cross-sectional’ activity that affects many sectors, both directly and indirectly. Therefore, it is important to consider the impact of urban tourism on sectors traditionally defined as ‘tourism-related’, but also its impact on other sectors through its inter-sectoral relationships. The authors calculate the percentage of the turnover of each sector that is attributable to the tourism industry. They also establish the geographical distribution of this impact: how is the effect shared between the city and its neighbouring areas? Finally, they stress that the effect of urban tourism should be quantified not only in terms of turnover, but also in terms of its contribution to GDP and employment.

External Effects and Cost of Production

Recent studies (Romer, 1986; Lucas, 1988) have stressed the importance of factors external to the firm in the production process. Such externalities are assumed to have a direct effect on the level of production or to enhance the productivity of traditional inputs. Broadly speaking, we can identify two types of externalities. First, inputs that are not explicitly taken into account in the firm’s decision-making process although they contribute to the production process (for instance, the availability of human capital, public capital or infrastructure, and social capital). We will refer to these external effects as “external inputs.” Second, externalities that are relevant outside the economies giving rise to the externality, regardless whether these economies are understood as the economy of a specific industry or a specific country or region. This type of externality has recently been considered theoretically in growth models dealing with open economies.

The Enlargement of the European Union and the Spatial Distribution of Economic Activity

One of the challenges facing regional policy in the European Union is the accession of new countries to the Single Market and to Economic and Monetary Union. Conditions in many of these East European regions are worse than in the least developed regions of the fifteen existing member states. Moreover, the accession of these countries is likely to have a marked effect on the geographical distribution of economic activity in the rest of the European Union (EU). Taking this into account, this article discusses the lessons that we have learned from the latest adhesions to the EU, in order to be able to predict what will arise from the enlargement scheduled for mid-2004. In this sense, we compute specialization and concentration indexes in order to highlight the effects of enlargement on the spatial distribution of activity in the EU. Additionally, inequality measures are calculated to describe the evolution of regional disparities before and after enlargement. A regional and national database for EU15 and for candidate countries with a high degree of sectoral detail from 1985 to 2001 is compiled. Analysis and some recommendations for regional policy are provided.

The Spatial Distribution of Labour Productivity in the European Regions: A Study in Spatial Econometrics

In recent years, as a consequence, among other factors, of the emergence of the New Economic Geography (Krugman 1991a, b), interest in the location of economic activity and, more specifically, its concentration has grown. The models developed in this branch of economics seek to account for the eventual location of industry in terms of competing centripetal and centrifugal forces (see Ottaviano and Puga 1997; Krugman 1998; and Martin 1999 for a survey of models developed in the New Economic Geography). Interestingly, many of these models support the existence of an inverted-U shape relationship between the degree of integration and the level of concentration of activity.

Innovation spillovers and firm performance: micro evidence from Spain (2004–2009)

This article analyses the impact that R&D expenditures and intra- and inter-industry externalities have on the performance of Spanish firms. Despite the extensive literature studying the relationship between innovation and productivity, there are far fewer studies in this particular area examining the importance of sectoral externalities, especially focused on Spain. One novelty of this study, conducted for the industrial and service sectors, is that we also consider the technology level of the sector in which the firm operates and firm size. The database used is the Technological Innovation Panel. It comprises 9985 firms over the period 2004–2009 and has been used infrequently for studies of this type. The Olley and Pakes (Econometrica 64:1263-1297, 1996) estimator is adopted in order to account for both simultaneity and selection biases providing consistent estimates. The results suggest that, unlike previous studies, R&D expenditures do not have a direct impact on firm performance. By contrast, spillovers do. In particular, intra-industry externalities present a positive and significant effect in low-tech and large firms. Inter-industry externalities, however, present an ambiguous effect and there appears to be no specific pattern of behaviour associated with technology level or firm size.

“Economic Impact of Cruise Activity: The Port of Barcelona”

ABSTRACT This article shows the methodology and the main figures of the local and regional economic impact generated by cruise activity. This article is pioneering in combining different issues: estimating the impact of the cruise port activity, presenting these impacts disaggregated at a sectoral level, using a rigorous methodology and carrying out extensive fieldwork. It is demonstrated that all sectors, not just traditional tourism-related sectors, benefit from cruise tourism. In order to test and apply our methodology we focus the analysis on the Port of Barcelona, which has become the leading cruise port in the Mediterranean area.

Economic impact of the ministry of defence’s budget: methodological design and results for the Spanish economy

This article analyses the economic impact of the expenditure budget of the Spanish Ministry of Defence (MoD) and its Autonomous Agencies (AA), distinguishing direct, indirect and induced effects. The input–output methodology is used to find intersectoral effects on the rest of the economy. The article quantifies the economic impact in terms of production, gross value added (GVA), employed population, tax revenue, and also in terms of its contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP) of Spain in 2010. The results show that the activity of the MoD and AA generates 1.2% of the country’s GDP and 1.7% of total employment in that year.