Francisco J. Velázquez

The Role of International Technology Spillovers in the Economic Growth of the OECD Countries

This paper explores the role of imports as a mechanism of transmission of international technology spillovers and its significance for the growth of the OECD countries. For this purpose we estimate a version of the growth model proposed by Benhabib and Spiegel (1994), which includes two main modifications in order to better specify the nature of international knowledge diffusion. The first is the inclusion of the R&D capital stock into this framework. The second consist of using a direct measurement of international technology spillovers instead of using per capita GDP gap in respect to the leader country as approach to it. Our results reveal that international technology spillovers transmitted through imports have had a favourable influence on the economic growth of the OECD countries. However, they show the predominant role of the domestic human and R&D capital endowments in economic growth.

Determinants of Net Trade Flows in the OECD: New Evidence with Special Emphasis on the Former Communist Members

This study estimates an econometric panel-data model, in order to explore the capacity of some of the hypotheses formulated in recent dynamic models of trade and economic growth to explain the bilateral trade of OECD countries. The study suggests that the larger a countrys endowment of both tangible and intangible (human and technological) capital in relation to that of its trade partners, the higher the export/import ratio of its bilateral trade. It also shows that direct investment enhances the export/import ratio with the host country. The former communist countries reflect only minor differences from the other OECD members. Copyright 2002 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

The Effect of Accessibility on Productivity in Spanish Manufacturing Firms

This paper evaluates the impact of accessibility on the productivity of Spanish manufacturing firms. We suggest the use of accessibility indicators of workers and commodities, integrating transport, land use, and individual components, computing real distances or traveling times using the Spanish full road network. Estimated firms’ total factor productivity is explained as a function of the accessibility indicators and additional control variables. Results evidence the crucial role on firms’ productivity to the accessibility of commodities and to a slightly lesser extent the workers.

Is Public Capital Productive? Evidence from a Meta-analysis

Debate exists over the role that public investment must play in economic recovery and economic growth. The underlying idea behind this debate has much to do with the value of output elasticity of public capital. This article presents a meta‐analysis of this elasticity, which was performed by considering almost 2,000 elasticities previously estimated from 145 papers. In addition, for each elasticity, we also take into account some 30 associated features relative to the methodology used for each case or relative to the characteristics of data samples. The obtained results reveal an average short‐term elasticity of 0.13 (0.16 in the long term). We also find evidence of the importance of the methodology adopted for the obtained results, as well as the publication bias. Finally, we find a minor reduction in the value of the elasticity as public capital endowments increase. The results obtained highlight the positive and important effect of public investment on productivity. As a results of the value obtained, public investment will be self‐financed in the long‐term because of generated returns. But, we also find that the effectiveness of public investment has a clear influence of the institutional context.

Multinational activity of European firms and heterogeneity

This paper offers an empirical assessment of the multinational activity of European firms. It takes the predictions of models of firm heterogeneity and FDI activity as a reference to explore the characteristics of multinational firms from 30 European countries. We use an original dataset, based on ORBIS, which links information of parent-affiliate pairs of firms. Our results show that more productive firms have greater multinational activity in terms of both scope, the number of foreign markets where they invest, and scale, the volume of local sales by subsidiaries active in foreign markets. The estimation of gravity equations shows that country characteristics that encourage multinational activity successively induce the entry of less productive parent firms. We confirm this asymmetry for the following variables: GDPs of the home and host countries, distance, contiguity and having a common colonial history.)

A New Tool for the Analysis of the International Competitiveness of Tourist Destinations Based on Performance

This article presents a new tool for the analysis of the international competitiveness of tourist destinations based on the evolution of tourist inflows. For this purpose, an adaptation of the conditional β-convergence to the tourist sector is proposed. Beyond the analysis of the growth rate of tourist flows, which is not comparable among countries, some of the specificities of this sector are considered in the competitive analysis, such as the different sizes of the markets and the maturity of the destinations, the business cycle, and so on. UNWTO data for international tourist arrivals and tourism receipts for up to 214 destinations and the period 1995 to 2016 are used to analyze the evolution of the competitiveness of major international tourist regions and some of the world’s leading tourist destinations. The results show the potential of the proposed tool for analyzing tourism competitiveness by offering a diagnosis in the short, medium and long terms.

Has European Integration Approximated the Composition of Government Expenditures

Globalization and growth-maximizing governments may cause countries to converge towards a similar composition of government expenditures. These convergent forces may be even more intensive in the case of EU Member States engaged in the European integration process. The results obtained, through calculation of a constructed dissimilarity index and by adapting the usual indicators of convergence (b, s and g-convergence), reveal that there has been an harmonization process. In addition, this approach of structures of government expenditures has been greater in the EU than in the Non-EU countries of the OECD. Nevertheless, EU member states are converging towards a different steady state composition of government expenditures.