Knowledge intensive services (KIS) have a key role in the creation and commercialisation of new products, processes and services. They are fundamental as holders and creators of innovation, both technological and organisational.
Nevertheless, little is known about the factors that explain why some firms use more than other these services (technological advice, applied research, strategic consultancy, engineering, etc.). In this paper, using a database of more than 2.000 firms, the factors that explain the use of KIS by small and medium firms are analysed. The most consistent conclusions of the available studies show that the demand of services increases with the size of the user firms. Also, other variables as the age, sector, localisation, innovation level and exports are examined.

The objective of the research is to know the factors that in Spain determine the choice of banking organization. The obtained results indicate that the dimension of the network of branches is the reason more valued. In spite of the increasing symmetry of the Spanish banking market, the preferences of the clients of the savings banks and those of the banks are not absolutely coincident, being the proximity – the main reason for election- much more valued by the former than by the latter. The existence of divergences in the preferences has also been detected according to the region and the typology of city of residence.

In this paper, we examine the relationship between the stock of human capital and productivity in the Spanish regions (NUTS III), and assess whether the transmission channel involves external economies. The empirical evidence points to a positive relationship between the two variables, although it cannot be explained in terms of the impact of exogenous local human capital external economies, but rather in terms of other demand factors.

When a major technological innovation spreads out in both high-tech and middle/low-tech industries, new clusters appear, develop and grow at the expenses of “older” historical industrial sites. The literature has, under various labels, recognised three main stages of cluster development: an initial stage sparked by an initial exogenous, shock; a second stage driven by Marshall’s (1920) agglomeration economies (labour market pooling, supply of intermediate goods and services and knowledge spillovers); a third stage in which the cluster either achieves a sectoral leadership or declines. The paper shows how different clusters’ evolution (often told as separated stories) are part of a wider picture in which technological and spatial interactions between emerging and declining clusters play a decisive role. A final section draws some policy suggestions for public authorities and regional planners dealing with the development of an innovative cluster.

Este trabajo cuantifica, en primer lugar, la movilidad intergeneracional de ingresos en España para los años 1980 y 1990. Dicha movilidad se interpreta como la correlación de la transmisión de ingresos de una generación a la siguiente. Los resultados muestran que la movilidad de ingresos incrementó durante la década del 1980. Este aumento de la movilidad no fue homogéneo para hombres y mujeres ni tampoco igual según la zona de residencia del individuo. En segundo lugar, se cuantifica la movilidad intergeneracional educativa, es decir, el grado de transmisión de educación de padres a hijos para el año 1990. Se observa que hay poca dependencia de la educación entre generaciones. Finalmente, se observan que las dos medidas de movilidad intergeneracional -la de ingresos y la educativa- no se pueden considerar iguales.

The purpose of this paper is to study the dynamics of growth and convergence in Spain for the period 1965-1995. We analyse the evolution of the per capita income distribution across Spanish provinces and estimate the e®ects on this evolution of factors such as private, human and public capital, and an industrialisation index. We show that after a period of absolute convergence over the 60’s and early 70’s, the provinces polarised (club convergence) during the 80’s. This polarisation process preceded a period of divergence among clubs, which began to appear during the 90’s. Moreover, by estimating counterfactual densities, we show that private capital accumulation and education at graduate level have an e®ect on the growth process of rich provinces and can account for a relevant fraction of the actual dispersion and polarisation of incomes. In addition, we found that public capital has reduced inequalities, especially in recent years, through redistribution of incomes rather than by increasing productivity. Finally, industrialisation explains a smaller fraction of such processes once estimates are controlled for all the other growth determinants.