José Manuel Pastor Monsálvez

A Valuation of the Long-Term Socioeconomic Contributions of the European Higher Education Institutions

This study analyses the contribution of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to the socio-economic development of the EU and each of its 28 members over the period 2000-2014. For this purpose, we examine the contributions of HEIs both through their educational and research activities. In the first case, we take into account the direct impact of higher education on the human capital of individuals, as well as the indirect impact on employment rates given the greater participation and employability, ceteris paribus, of people with higher education. In the second case, we study the contribution of the R&D of HEIs to technological capital. To carry out the analysis, counterfactual scenarios which assume that HEIs do not exist are estimated for each country. These counterfactual scenarios serve as a reference to estimate the impact of HEIs, applying techniques of growth accounting. The results obtained indicate that HEIs are a significant source of growth in EU countries, also contributing to mitigating the adverse effects of the periods of crisis. For the whole of the EU, the estimates show that GDP per capita would currently be more than one fifth higher than that corresponding to a scenario without HEIs. The results obtained also show the differences in GDP per capita between EU countries of up to 15% associated with the activity of HEIs.

Rankings ISSUE 2013: Indicadores sintéticos de las universidades españolas

Los rankings ordenan a las universidades condensando en un indicador informacion heterogenea acerca de sus caracteristicas y resultados. Los rankings simplifican la complejidad pero ocultan rasgos diferenciales de las universidades que pueden ser relevantes. La simplificacion excesiva es peligrosa y, siempre que sea posible, un sistema de rankings debe ofrecer informacion diferenciada acerca de las principales misiones que las universidades cumplen –la docencia, la investigacion y la innovacion y desarrollo tecnologico-, permitiendo comparar los logros de cada institucion en cada dimension. La construccion de un ranking implica cierta dosis de subjetividad, al seleccionar variables, construir indicadores y ponderarlos. Para acotar los efectos de la subjetividad es importante explicar en detalle la metodologia utilizada y permitir al usuario que exprese sus preferencias por la docencia, la investigacion o la transferencia, construyendo un ranking personalizado. Este trabajo presenta la metodologia y algunos de los resultados del proyecto U-Ranking, consistente en la construccion de un conjunto de Indicadores Sinteticos del Sistema Universitario Espanol. La metodologia utilizada tiene presentes las recomendaciones de la literatura especializada y los expertos en elaboracion de indicadores.

Banks’ Ratings the Financial Crisis and Size of Entities

The ratings described by the Bank of England’s Financial Stability Paper (2011) are an ordinal ranking of a borrower’s, or a security’s, credit quality, evaluated by a rating agency on the basis of a fundamental analysis of the financial and legal information by the issuer of a security. Therefore they have an important role in financial markets, because they reduce the problems of asymmetric information between issuers and investors, and the regulation of the former. In recent years this indicator has experienced a significant growth due to different reasons, such as the globalization of financial markets, the changes in the channels of financing (the development of markets vs banks), the emergence of new financial products and the role conceded by financial regulators. This last reason, the legal role, has considerable weight, as pointed out in the report of the International Monetary Fund (2010). In this way and related to the banking sector, Basel II allows the banks to calculate the minimum regulatory capital for banks based on the rating assigned by an established and reputable rating agency.