Joaquín Artés

Do Spanish politicians keep their promises

In this article we analyse the fulfilment of economic pledges contained in the electoral manifestoes of the two main Spanish parties, PP and PSOE during the four electoral cycles that took place between 1989 and 2004. Consistent with previous research on programme fulfilment, we find that most promises are fulfilled by the party in government. In addition we find much lower fulfilment rates for the parties in opposition. Surprisingly, we find no significant differences in fulfilment when the governing party enjoys absolute majority compared to minority governments. This is unexpected because coalition and minority governments constrain the capacity of the winning parties compared to absolute majority governments.

Experimental Evidence on the Effect of Grading Incentives on Student Learning in Spain

In this article, the authors aim to identify the causal effect of the use of graded problem sets on academic performance of Spanish students. The identification strategy relies on an experiment in which the authors exploit variation arising from observing the performance of nearly 300 students taking the same class during the same semester and with the same instructors. Academic performance is measured through a multiple choice final exam in which some questions are related to graded problem sets and others are related to non-graded problem sets given through the semester. After accounting for potential biases and selection concerns, the results show that graded problem sets increase test scores by eight percentage points, or close to a letter grade.

Educational mismatch and job aspirations

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between education, job aspirations and subjective well-being. This analysis is done across the entire well-being distribution and taking account of educational mismatches that could condition individuals’ satisfaction if education generates certain aspirations which are not met by the individuals. Design/methodology/approach - – Using data from the European Social Survey, a quantile regression model is estimated. This approach allows one to assess the impact of the education variables at different points of the happiness conditional distribution. Findings - – The results are consistent with the hypothesis that the impact of education on subjective well-being varies across the distribution, with education effects lower at the top of the happiness distribution. It is also found that education generates certain aspirations among individuals in regard to the job they expect to hold and that people suffer a psychological cost when those aspirations are not met. This “aspiration mechanism” seems however to weaken as one moves along the distribution. Originality/value - – The central contribution of this paper lies in the treatment of job aspirations through different variables of educational mismatch. Although rising aspirations have often been highlighted as the main mechanism that could explain the weak relationship between education and subjective well-being, this mechanism has barely been analyzed empirically. Moreover, the effects of educational mismatch on individual satisfaction have only been analyzed at the mean of the conditional distribution. The value of this study is therefore twofold, focussing on the analysis across the entire well-being distribution of the aspiration mechanism generated by education in regard to the job an individual expects to hold.

Strategic voting and non-voting in Spanish elections

The literature on strategic voting has provided evidence that some electors support large parties at the voting booth to avoid wasting their vote on a preferred but uncompetitive smaller party. In this paper we argue that district conditions also elicit reactions from abstainers and other party voters. We find that, when ballot gains and losses from different types of responses to the constituency conditions are taken into account, large parties still benefit moderately from strategic behaviour, while small parties obtain substantial net ballot losses. This result stems from a model that allows for abstention in the choice set of voters, and uses counterfactual simulation to estimate the incidence of district conditions in the Spanish general elections of 2000 and 2008.

Fiscal Deficits and Type of Government: A Study of Spanish Local Elections

The literature on public choice has largely argued that when several actors are part of a decision-making process, the results will be biased towards overspending. However, the empirical studies of the effect of minorities and coalition governments on spending have yielded mixed support for this theoretical claim. This chapter argues that the inconclusiveness of the empirical evidence is related to problems of standard regression models to accurately capture unobserved heterogeneity. We use data from Spanish municipalities for the period 2004–2011 to compare the results of four typically used estimation methods: mean comparison, OLS, fixed-effects regression and matching. We argue that out of these models, matching deals better with unobserved heterogeneity and selection bias of the type of government, allowing us to reduce estimating error. The results show that, when we account for these problems in a matching model, minorities run lower surpluses than single party majorities. This result did not arise in simple mean comparisons or OLS models, or even in the fixed-effects specification. These results give support to the law of 1/n (Weingast, Journal of Political Economy 96: 132–163, 1981) and also underscore that in order to identify correctly the impact of government characteristics on policy-making, we need to understand that these are not randomly assigned across our units of observation. This advises the use of more quasi-experimental methods in our empirical research.

Are Education and Occupational Status Affecting Men’s and Women’s Satisfaction in Different Ways? A Cross-National Perspective on Gender Inequality

In this chapter we analyze the factors behind life satisfaction of men and women, focusing on the role played by educational attainment and different patterns of work. Account is also taken of the social context as regards gender inequality since similar working status might lead to different perceptions of wellbeing depending on whether or not the individuals follow the prevailing gender roles in their societies. Among the results, it is found that no gender differences in wellbeing appear in countries with low gender inequality. Moreover, whereas in countries with less gender inequality the effects of education and occupation tend to be rather similar across genders, in less gender egalitarian societies the effects of education on men’s satisfaction manifest only through enhanced job opportunities and professional status. The results of this study tend to confirm that gender social roles matter to shape individual subjective wellbeing, being the gender social context a key element in explaining gender differences in life satisfaction and the factors behind subjective wellbeing of men and women living in different societies.