This paper presents new data, in the form of four indices, on liberalization policies and the independence of regulators for a cross section of countries. These indices are combined with a comprehensive set of performance, institutional and political data to analyze both the determinants and the impact of telecommunications policies. We find that liberalization policies are negatively associated with the degree to which countries have an interventionist tradition, but not with the partisan ideology of reforming countries per se. We also find that countries where the institutional endowment constrains less the behaviour of the executive bodies, and countries with a stronger incumbent, are more prone to create truly independent regulatory agencies. There is weak evidence that the creation of independent regulatory agencies has a positive effect on network penetration when we take into account the endogeneity of regulatory independence.

This paper looks for empirical evidence on spillovers occurring between central cities and their suburbs, both on the fiscal side and on the growth of population and output. To test these hypotheses we specify a dynamic model with population and output both in the central city and in the suburbs as endogenous variables and with fiscal variables in the central city and in the suburbs as covariates. The model is estimated with a panel of data of twenty-eight metropolitan areas in Spain for the period 1992-2001.The main findings are that the capital stock in the central city promotes growth both in the city and in the suburbs. Also, higher growth in the central city translates into higher long run growth in the suburbs. These results are indicative of the potential welfare gains of both, concentrating financial resources in the central city, and of the implementation of existing proposals of metropolitan consolidation.

El objetivo de este artículo es buscar nuevas evidencias sobre la eficiencia del apoyo público a la I+D empresarial mediante un análisis sectorial con datos de panel para el caso de España. Tras presentar la evidencia empírica tanto nacional como internacional sobre los efectos del apoyo público a la financiación empresarial de la I+D se lleva a cabo un análisis aplicado para el caso de España con el objetivo de examinar si las subvenciones públicas a la I+D complementan la financiación privada de I+D y cumplen el principio de adicionalidad o, en sentido contrario sustituyen la financiación privada de I+D con un efecto “crowding out”.

The aim of this study is to estimate the redistributive, stabiliser and insurance effects at territorial level of the federal budget of Australia, Spain, the USA and of the European Union. This analysis is carried out for the budget as a whole through regional fiscal balances and, separately for the revenues and expenditures. The methodology used is a panel data econometric model. The main conclusion is that in all the cases considered the expenditures have higher effects, both redistributive and stabiliser/insurance, than the revenues and that the size of the European budget should increase in order to be able to develope redistributive policies.

La periodización y análisis del proceso de desarrollo de la economía española en el largo plazo es objeto de debate entre un importante grupo de investigadores. En este trabajo se utilizan técnicas de análisis de series temporales con el objeto de aportar nueva evidencia que pueda ayudar a la resolución del mismo. Para ello se analizan dos agregados macroeconómicos (PIB y PIB per cápita) de la economía española para el periodo 1870-1994. Además, el análisis evalúa los cambios acaecidos en la dinámica española de crecimiento atendiendo a sus similitudes y divergencias con un pequeño grupo de países desarrollados: Italia, Francia, Alemania, Gran Bretaña y Estados Unidos.

Does agglomeration influence the growth capacity of cities? Would an excessive agglomeration diminish this capacity? In the document the factors determining the growth of Spanish cities from 1981 to 2000 are examined. From recent theoretical approaches, these determining factors are the ones that affect the productivity of the firms, the quality of life for the inhabitants and the availability of land. After developing the theoretical model, the results of the empirical analysis applied to the large cities indicate that the initial conditions of 1981 effectively influence the capacity for growth of these cities. The cities that start with higher levels of population, general economic activity, industrial activity and unemployment and lower levels of technology and surface area present lower rates of economic and demographic growth. Reproducing the analysis for sub-periods (the decades of the eighties and the nineties), it has been demonstrated that, in spite of obtaining similar results, the factors that determine the growth of cities change over time.