Jesús Rodríguez-López

TECHNOLOGICAL SOURCES OF PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN GERMANY, JAPAN, AND THE UNITED STATES

In this paper we use a dynamic general equilibrium growth model to quantify the contribution to productivity growth from different technological sources in the three leading economies of the world: Germany, Japan, and the United States. The sources of technology are classified into neutral progress and investment-specific progress. The latter can be split into two different types of equipment: information and communication technologies (ICT) and non-ICT equipment. We find that in the long run, neutral technological change is the main source of productivity growth in Germany and Japan. For the United States, the main source of productivity growth arises from investment-specific technological change, mainly associated with ICT. We also find that a non-negligible part of productivity growth in the three countries has been due to the technology specific to non-ICT equipment.

Information and communication technologies over the business cycle

Abstract This paper quantifies the relative importance of different sources of technological progress as determinants of short-run fluctuations in the US economy. In particular, it focuses on the role of the technical innovations associated with information and communication technologies (ICT). The paper points to three main findings. First, neutral technical change is the main determinant of the US aggregate fluctuations, and its contribution remained constant throughout the postwar sample. Second, the importance of ICT increased significantly during the last decades of the considered sample, which nowadays is responsible for approximately 1/5 of GDP fluctuations. Third, the variance reduction of exogenous shocks typically associated with the last decades of the postwar sample, mainly comes from ICT and neutral shocks, whereas the volatility of innovations in traditional capital remained relatively stable. Overall, we conclude that attention should be focused on identifying those incentives behind the adoption of knowledge and technology, an issue related to the neutral progress, rather than the quality or technology embedded in capital goods such as ICT assets.

Clubes de convergencia de países europeos en emisiones de CO2 derivadas del transporte en coche: el papel de la dieselización

La reduccion de las emisiones de C02 es uno de los mayores objetivos de la politica climatica de la Union Europea (UE). Uno de los mayores factores de contaminacion en Europa es el sector del transporte, especialmente el transporte rodado por carretera, responsable de una proporcion sustancial de las emisiones de CO2 debido a la combustion del petroleo. La contribucion de este estudio es doble. En primer lugar, se aplica una novedosa metodologia desarrollada por Phillips and Sul (2007) con el objetivo de examinar la existencia de clubes de convergencia en emisiones de CO2 por coche entre 13 paises de la UE durante el periodo temporal 1991 a 2011. En segundo lugar, se investiga la relacion entre tales clubes de convergencia en emisiones y algunas medidas de dieselizacion, en concreto, el stock de coches diesel sobre el total de la flota y el consumo de diesel sobre el total del combustible. La mayor eficiencia de los vehiculos diesel ha generado una politica fiscal favorable a este combustible, llevando a un intenso proceso de dieselizacion en Europa durante las ultimas decadas. No obstante, algunos estudios recientes (Gonzalez and Marrero, 2012; Rodriguez et al., 2015) han cuestionado el exito de estas politicas como herramientas de reduccion de las emisiones de CO2 en el sector de los coches. Este estudio pretende contribuir a este importante debate. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/CIT2016.2016.3471

Road accidents and business cycles in Spain

This paper explores the causes behind the downturn in road accidents in Spain across the last decade. Possible causes are grouped into three categories: Institutional factors (a Penalty Point System, PPS, dating from 2006), technological factors (active safety and passive safety of vehicles), and macroeconomic factors (the Great recession starting in 2008, and an increase in fuel prices during the spring of 2008). The PPS has been blessed by incumbent authorities as responsible for the decline of road fatalities in Spain. Using cointegration techniques, the GDP growth rate, the fuel price, the PPS, and technological items embedded in motor vehicles appear to be statistically significantly related with accidents. Importantly, PPS is found to be significant in reducing fatal accidents. However, PPS is not significant for non-fatal accidents. In view of these results, we conclude that road accidents in Spain are very sensitive to the business cycle, and that the PPS influenced the severity (fatality) rather than the quantity of accidents in Spain. Importantly, technological items help explain a sizable fraction in accidents downturn, their effects dating back from the end of the nineties.