Joan Costa-i-Font

Is the Impact of Public Investment Neutral Across the Regional Income Distribution? Evidence from Mexico

Abstract This article investigates the contribution of public investment to the reduction of regional inequalities, with a specific application to Mexico. We examine the impact of public investment according to the position of each region in the conditional distribution of regional income by using quantile regression as an empirical technique. The results confirm the hypothesis that regional inequalities can indeed be attributed to the regional distribution of public investment;the observed pattern shows that public investment mainly helped to reduce regional inequalities among the richest regions.

Federalism and decentralization in European health and social care

This book integrates two disciplines- economics and political science- to map the past, present and future of the territorial allocation of authority in the decentralized big countries of Western Europe. By comparing different states, attention is drawn to the interesting similarities and differences that exist in the health and social case policies of varying countries in Europe. The result is an analysis that highlights the ubiquity of territorial politics and the necessarily territorial nature of many health and social care policies. By clarifying assumptions that economists, political scientists and practitioners have often introduced into their analyses of decentralization and the allocation of authority in health, this book brings to the fore theoretical discussions from second generation fiscal federalism and new politics of the welfare state alongside both quantitative and qualitative empirical evidence of different European countries that differ widely in institutional design and historical inertias.

Regional Single Currency Effects on Bilateral Trade with the European Union

The regional effects of sharing a single currency on bilateral trade with other European Union member states are a contentious question. This paper examined different definitions along with regional effects of the set of the euro as a common currency by taking advantage of a gravity specification of bilateral trade between the seventeen Spanish regions and EU-13 countries over the period 1997-2004. Our database allows accounting for two distinct definitions of a single currency depending on its temporal set up. That is, the “exchange rate volatility effect�? (from exchange rate fixing in 1999) is distinguished from the so-called “common currency effect�? (resulting from the issuing of a new currency in 2002). Findings are suggestive of a regional concentration of currency union effects in a few regions, namely those relatively more open to trade, though such effects are found to fade away over time. Trade enhancing effects are found to range between 45 to 16% depending on the specification. Finally, whist the “exchange rate volatility effect�? of a common currency was significant, the pure currency union effect was found to be almost negligible.

Measuring Health Inequality with Categorical Data: Some Regional Patterns

Much of the theoretical literature on inequality assumes that the equalisand is a cardinal variable like income or wealth. However, health status is generally measured as a categorical variable expressing a qualitative order. Traditional solutions involve reclassifying the variable by means of qualitative models and relying on inequality measures that are mean independent. We argue that the way status is conceptualized has important theoretical implications for measurement as well as for policy analysis. We also bring to the data a recently proposed approach to measuring self-reported health inequality that meets both rigorous and practical considerations. We draw upon the World Health Survey data to examine alternative pragmatic methods for making health inequality comparisons. Findings suggest significant differences in health inequality measurement and that regional and country patterns of inequality orderings do not coincide with any reasonable categorization of countries by health system organization.

Myths of health care decentralization.

There are several myths about the impact of decentralization of health care governance. These include a worsening of regional inequalities, greater privatization of health care, greater inefficiency resulting from duplication of managerial activities such as human resource policies, and lower productivity. These myths have partly arisen from a lack of rigorous assessments of the effects of decentralization.

Do international launch strategies of pharmaceutical corporations respond to changes in the regulatory environment

This paper investigates how regulation impinges on the launch strategies of international pharmaceutical corporations for new molecules and generics across the main OECD markets during 1960-2008. Comprehensive IMS data is used to analyze the international diffusion of 845 molecules from 14 different anatomic therapeutic categories using non-parametric survival analysis. The paper focuses on two main regulatory changes that reshaped the barriers to entry substantially: the US Hatch-Waxman Act in 1984 and the establishment of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in 1995. We find that legal transaction costs have a significant impact on timing of launch. Stringent market authorization requirements for new pharmaceutical products in the US after 1962 resulted in a significant US drug lag in the introduction of pharmaceutical innovation vis-a-vis Europe during 1960-1984. However, financial incentives of the 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act proved effective in closing this lag. A more streamlined EMA regulatory approval process has reduced barriers to entry in Europe enabling quicker diffusion of pharmaceutical products, yet a marked pattern of delay in adoption of innovation is still evident due to local differences in pricing regulations. New molecule launch strategically takes place first in higher-priced EU markets as a result of threat of arbitrage and price dependency across the member states. Finally, the impact of price controls on the launch timing of pharmaceutical innovation translates to the adoption of imitative pharmaceutical products-hampering access not only to new technologies but also to cost-saving substitute products.