Seminari interni “Growing like Spain: EU Regional Policy, capital widening and productivity stagnation in the period 1989-2010”

Jesús López-Rodríguez University of A Coruña.

Jesús López-Rodríguez is a invited speaker who will talk about regional policies in Europe, with special attention to the Spanish case

11.00

 “Growing like Spain: EU Regional Policy, capital widening and productivity stagnation in the period 1989-2010”

Total Factor Productivity (TFP) in Spain over 1989-2010 has followed a decreasing trend. This paper examines to what degree research and development (RD) expenditures and the investments in transport infrastructure supported by the EU regional and cohesion policy (EUINFP) prevent TFP over this period from falling further. Using an augmented Mankiw-Romer-Weil (1992) model we derive an econometric specification for the value added per worker where besides the traditional factors of production, TFP depends on RD, EUINFP and also on the interactions between EUINFP and private capital, and EUINFP and the labour market. We estimate this specification for the 17 Spanish regions for 1989-2010 and find positive marginal contributions for RD, EUINFP and the interdependencies between EUINFP and private capital on the TFP growth rate. 

Laura Varela-Candamio University of A Coruña.

Laura Varela-Candamio is a visiting scholar in the IRPET to analyse the fiscal decentralization in the European southern countries

12.00

“Analysing the levels of efficiency in the Spanish tax system under the economic crisis”

This paper evaluates marginal excess burdens and their distributional patterns in the context of Spain. This is done for the most relevant tax categories in this economy taking into account the structure of the Spanish tax system before and after the major tax reforms undertaken in this economy since 2010 i.e. the value added and personal income tax reforms. In doing so we use a static applied general equilibrium model featured with heterogeneous households classified according to their taxable income. With this objective we have constructed a novel dataset that consists of a Spanish Microeconomic SAM for the year 2010. The comparison of the results obtained before and after controlling for the impacts that these reforms had on the Spanish tax system offer useful insides about how the rise in the inefficiency levels of the current Spanish tax system could and still can be mitigated.