Elena Bárcena-Martín

University of Malaga | UMA ·  Department of Statistics and Econometrics

This research examines the extent to which labor regulatory context matters for entrepreneurial activity under a gender perspective, using institutional economics and feminist theories as the analytical framework. We conduct a panel data analysis for 86 countries during the period 2004–2018 by differentiating between high-income and developing econ...

In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Spain was one of the worst-hit countries, although not all areas and social groups were affected equally. This study focuses on Malaga, a cosmopolitan tourist destination located on the southern Mediterranean coast that has the sixth largest population in Spain. Specifically, it examines the relationship...

“Leaving no one behind” (LNOB) constitutes one of the core principles underpinning the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We propose a complementary fuzzy logic approach to identify countries left behind in human development and each of its dimensions. We find that the countries left furthest behind at the beginning of the century were those...

This article examines the relationship of city listing concentration and host listing share with prices in the peer-to-peer accommodation market. To this end, a multilevel analysis is applied to data from 216,960 Airbnb listings in 45 cities. The results reveal that while city-level concentration does not significantly affect prices, the listing sh...

The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996 devolved responsibility for the design of welfare programs from the federal to state governments in the U.S. The strategies implemented to achieve some of the main goals of the reform might have had the effects of reducing the protection received by...

Housing deprivation is a key determinant of the capacity to prevent infection and to recover from a disease because poor housing prevents adequate sheltering during a quarantine. We analyse the degree of housing deprivation faced by households in European countries when COVID-19 lockdown measures were enacted. To do so, we propose a synthetic measu...

One of the most challenging gender gaps in the Global South remains in the economic sphere. This paper examines how public institutions affect the gender gap in economic participation and opportunities in 74 developing and emerging countries during the period 2006–2016. We find that the public institutional environment is closely related to the eco...

‘Leave no one behind’ has become an important principle of the entire 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals that brings inequality to the centre stage. Although a precise definition of what it is to lag behind is essential to assess sustainable economic growth and social progress a discussion on the desirable pro...

There are several avenues through which COVID-19 lockdowns may have potentially increased well-being inequality in European countries. An important one arises from the differences in the housing conditions with which households faced the lockdown. In this paper, we analyse both the degree of housing deprivation and its inequality in European countr...

This contribution responds to the Comment entitled ‘Institutional quality convergence in the Euro area countries: a note and further evidence’ on our earlier published article in the Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Volume 28, Issue 3. By using the same data on Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law and Control of Corrup...

Aunque los investigadores sociales siempre se han interesado por la evolución y la dinámica de la pobreza, este tipo de estudios se han potenciado en los últimos años debido a la disponibilidad de fuentes estadísticas adecuadas.En este trabajo, empleando como fuente las ocho olas del PHOGUE, 1994-2001, se realiza un estudio estático y dinámico de l...

Economic parity continues to be one of the main challenges to achieving gender equality worldwide, even though disparities between countries in the economic gender gap are frequently neglected. In this paper, we use a fuzzy logic approach to measure the extent to which countries are narrowing this gap. Specifically, we evaluate the degree to which...

Purpose Institutional environment plays a crucial role in determining the nature of entrepreneurship that prevails in an economy. In this paper, the authors address how business, labour and credit regulations contribute differently to both the overall prevalence of opportunity-driven entrepreneurship (ODE) and its gender gap in high-income and emer...

We propose a graphical device—Three I’s of Anomalies (TIA) curves—that provides information on the incidence, intensity, and inequality (variability) of air temperature anomalies. We also propose a class of indices that help to compare different TIA curves when visual inspection alone is inconclusive. This class of indices identifies the 3 dimensio...

This paper aims to provide a framework for a complete assessment of the overall welfare gains resulting from social assistance programs. We make use of a social welfare function that satisfies several properties that must be considered when measuring the protection provided by these programs. We propose measuring the welfare gains that a society de...

In this paper we present a fuzzy multidimensional approach for the measurement of the ‘leaving no one behind’ principle underlying the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in European countries. In particular, we consider a two-step procedure. First, we compute the degree to which an individual is ‘left behind’ in each specific dimension. We then p...

Divergence in institutional quality across Euro area countries constitutes a risk for the smooth functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), increasing the vulnerability of the Euro to negative economic shocks. In this paper, we examine potential institutional convergence across Euro area countries since the onset of the Great Recession (...

This paper aims to analyze the impact of different intra-household arrangements, defined in terms of income pooling and decision-making responsibilities, on individual subjective well-being in a number of European countries. Using the EU-SILC 2010 module on intra-household sharing of resources and self-assessed health, as a dimension of subjective...

The risk of poverty or social exclusion constitutes the pivotal multidimensional indicator of living conditions in the European Union. Nevertheless, it only reports the proportion of individuals at risk and disregards the depth of poverty. The indicator therefore overlooks situations of possible vulnerable groups just above the threshold and is not...

In recent years, there has been increasing debate about the low economic growth and the risk of secular stagnation in economically advanced countries. Some authors point out possible links between secular stagnation and income inequality, causally in both directions. Taking as a reference point the theoretical literature on the relationship between...

This paper analyzes to what extent family arrangements are linked to the level of household material deprivation. This key dimension of individual well-being is defined as the enforced inability to afford financial expenses, durable goods, and adequate housing conditions. We define family arrangements in terms of the degree to which resources are p...

This paper examines the impacts of monetary policy shocks on income mobility in the Euro area, relying on earnings heterogeneity and income composition channels through which monetary policy affects income distribution. From a relative mobility perspective, upward and downward mobility are estimated over the period 2004-2014 for the EMU countries t...

Aggregate number of HWs in different months (data for 2001–2016), based on AEMET, IPCC, and MRDT definitions. We demonstrate that selection of the reference period and threshold temperature used in the definition of heat waves (HWs) can affect the reported frequency. We propose an alternative definition of HW that is based on a moving reference per...

This paper proposes a simple algorithm based on a matrix formulation to compute the Esteban and Ray (ER) polarization index. It then shows how the algorithm introduced leads to quite a simple decomposition of polarization by income sources. Such a breakdown was not available hitherto. The decomposition we propose will thus allow one to determine th...

Children are generally at a higher risk of poverty than the population as a whole, although the mechanisms that lead to their socio-economic vulnerability vary widely across European countries. This paper aims to further our understanding of to what extent cross-country variations in child poverty risk are associated with different ways of social t...

The measurement of the level of protection provided by minimum income programs has often focused on one of two dimensions: adequacy or coverage. The rankings of regions or countries in terms of the protection provided can be very different depending on the chosen outcome. In this paper, we adopt a social welfare approach for measuring welfare prote...

In recent years the differences in the institutional structure across the Euro area countries have become a cause of concern, both for some individual Member States and for the functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). In this paper we analyse the inequality in institutional quality across Euro area countries and estimate which factors...

Although there is considerable research evidence showing that immigrants are at great risk of poverty, there have been few comparative analyses of the poverty gap between immigrants and natives across Europe. We examine the patterns of variation in the immigrant–native poverty gap between and within countries. We simultaneously combine characterist...

This article examines the ability of social benefits to soften the level of child deprivation in Europe. We construct a dedicated child deprivation indicator that allows us to better capture children's circumstances and examine the effect on them of country and sociodemographic factors jointly through multilevel models. We contribute to the scarce...

Using the German Socio-Economic Panel, we analyze the relevance of modeling social comparisons to determine their effect on subjective well-being. We find that it is important to model social comparisons in such a way that captures the sensitivity of individuals to proximity. The impact on subjective well-being differs depending on the manner in wh...

This paper proposes a simple algorithm based on a matrix formulation to compute the Foster and Wolfson bipolarization index and then to decompose it by income sources. An empirical illustration based on EU-SILC data for the years 2007 and 2014 shows the usefulness of the proposed decomposition.

This paper aims to contribute to the literature on poverty and social exclusion by analysing the type of deprivation of the household where the child lives and the level of deprivation that child experiences. Using the EU-SILC 2009 module on deprivation for Spain, we find that the level of child deprivation varies among household types, that is, ev...

This paper extends previous work that derived a matricial approach to the definition of the Bonferroni index. The present study is devoted to the decomposition of a change over time in the Bonferroni index into two components, one measuring re-ranking and the other the progressivity of income change. An extension is then proposed, based on a general...

Macroeconomic conditions can have a substantial effect on the economic circumstances of individuals and therefore on the golf demand in a country. Using panel data on golf demand (number of golf players) and supply (number of courses), and indicators of the economic situation for 15 European countries, encompassing years 2000 through 2014, we estim...

The existing literature on welfare decentralization has not produced a robust set of measures and properties, and no consensus has emerged on how differences in the protection provided by territorial programs should be aggregated into a composite index. The measurement of the level of protection provided by decentralized minimum income programs has...

This paper examines the effects of growth and recession periods on child mortality in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) during the period 1990-2010. We provide empirical evidence of uneven effects of variations in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita on the evolution of child mortality rate in periods of economic recession and expansion. A de...

The Great Recession has notably affected household income in most European countries, but not in the same way for all types of household. This note aims to discuss whether significant differences exist in income growth between households with and without children. The study focuses on Spain, finding that Spanish households with children benefited l...

This paper assesses to what extent differences in the characteristics of individuals (micro-level perspective) and country-specific factors (macro-level perspective) can explain country differences with respect to material deprivation levels. Thus, our work aims to simultaneously consider the macro dimension and the predominantly individually-orien...

A simple algorithm is proposed which defines the Bonferroni as the product of a row vector of individual population shares, a linear mathematical operator called the Bonferroni matrix and a column vector of income shares. This algorithm greatly simplifies the decomposition of the Bonferroni index by income sources or classes and population subgroup...

This study advances research on the structural dimension in the predominantly individual-oriented field of poverty studies by evaluating to what extent cross-national differences in population and structural characteristics can explain the differences in poverty outcomes by gender. To facilitate an approach that integrates individual and structural...

This paper considers different ways of making comparisons between individuals in terms of deprivation and/or satisfaction. This allows the Gini index, the Bonferroni index and the De Vergottini index to be interpreted as social deprivation measures as well as social satisfaction measures. The inequality measures that belong to the β family, or line...

The purpose of this paper is to propose a family of inequality measures obtained from the Bonferroni curve as a distribution function. This family characterizes the income distribution, given the mean income, as well as other families considered in this paper. Although all of the families show a clear formal analogy and are mutually determined, the...

This paper uses comparable international data to examine the extent and wage effects of skill mismatches among European university graduates. The results show that the mismatched earn on average 11.7% less than their well-matched counterparts. This effect, however, cannot be regarded as constant across the conditional earnings distribution: workers...

En este artículo se describe una innovación de la metodología tradicional de la asignatura Estadística Descriptiva incorporando las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC). Tras la revisión de la planificación de la asignatura, la experiencia ha permitido, por una parte, establecer una colaboración entre varios profesores de la asigna...

Resumen La desigualdad en la distribución de la renta es una cuestión a la que se presta cada vez más atención, debido posiblemente a que tanto políticos como investigadores y académicos reconocen los vínculos entre desigualdad y otros fenómenos socioeconómicos. En este artículo se presenta de forma sencilla el concepto de desigualdad y cómo evalua...

En este trabajo se proporciona a los elementos de la familia ( de medias de desigualdad una interpretación como índices de privación o de satisfacción social. Para ello se contemplan distintas formas de realizar comparaciones entre individuos en distinta situación, junto a la utilización de diferentes criterios al agregar la privación/satisfacción...

The main objective of this work is to analyse income inequality (measured through the Gini index) in the European Union (EU) over the period 1995-2000. We decompose income inequality in the EU as a whole, considering 14 countries, and obtain between and within countries measures of inequality. The results reveal the existence of a reduction in inco...

En este trabajo se realiza un análisis comparativo de los índices de Bonferroni, de De Vergottini y de Gini, desde el punto de vista estadístico y normativo. Estas medidas, todas ellas lineales, presentan un conjunto de características comunes y una clara analogía formal, pero, al mismo tiempo, evidentes divergencias. Como consecuencia incorporan j...

Este trabajo analiza la pobreza en Eu­ropa desde un punto de vista dinámico con el fin de identificar en qué momento tienen lugar las transiciones de entrada y salida de la pobreza, con qué frecuen­cia se producen, y qué variables están relacionadas con ellas. Para ello se em­plean los datos del panel de hogares de la Unión Europea (PHOGUE) y se ap...

Aunque los investigadores sociales siempre se han interesado por la evolución y la dinámica de la pobreza, este tipo de estudios se han potenciado en los últimos años debido a la disponibilidad de fuentes estadísticas adecuadas. En este trabajo, empleando como fuente las ocho olas del PHOGUE, 1994-2001, se realiza un estudio estático y dinámico de...

Purpose: This paper studies the Bonferroni (B) and De Vergottini (V) inequality measures, evaluating their differences and similarities, both normatively and statistically. Design: We highlight the similarities of these two indices with the well-known Gini index (G) and use the AKS [Atkinson (1970), Kolm (1976), Sen (1973)] approach to relate socia...

En este trabajo se estudian dos familias numerables de índices de desigualdad que se obtienen como transformaciones lineales de los momentos respecto del origen de la curva de Lorenz y de su curva dual, al considerar tales curvas como funciones de distribución. Se presenta una visión unificada de ambas familias, tratando de clarificar su paralelism...

This paper broadens the approach of Hey and Lambert (Q. J. Econ. 95,567–573 1980) regarding relative deprivation to the case in which individuals compare themselves with individuals belonging not only to their own group, but also to other groups. In this way, we obtain the average deprivation of a population in relation to another. This allows us t...

The aim of this paper is studying two countable families of inequality measures obtained as linear transformations of potential moments, measured respect to the origin, of the Lorenz curve and its dual curve, considering both as distribution functions. Both families are jointly presented, clarifying their similarities and divergences. In the normat...

En este trabajo se analiza la pobreza en España desde una perspectiva dinámica, empleando los datos del Panel de Hogares Europeo (1994-2001). Con este objetivo se estiman las probabilidades de re-entrada y salida de la pobreza a través de las funciones de supervivencia y se aplica la metodología de las cadenas de Markov para estimar las probabilida...

We focus on the statics and dynamics of poverty in Spain using income data from the first eight waves of the European Community Household Panel. These data are for the years 1993-2000, a period not sufficiently covered by recent literature. The results confirm the pattern of poverty changes noted by other authors for the early nineteen-nineties. Af...

This paper investigates the effects of different events on the probability of escaping poverty in Spain. We first use a mutually exclusive hierarchical categorization of event types for each person experiencing a poverty spell ending and find that demographic events occur in 16% of households transiting out of poverty while income events occur in 8...

Aunque los investigadores sociales nunca han dejado de estar preocupados por la evolución y dinámica de la pobreza, en los últimos años se ha acrecentado el interés como consecuencia de la disponibilidad de fuentes estadísticas. En este trabajo se realiza un estudio sobre la evolución de los ingresos de los individuos empleando las ocho primeras ol...

. En este trabajo se analiza la dinámica de la pobreza a corto plazo en España y Reino Unido a partir de los datos de las primeras siete olas del Panel de Hogares Europeo. Con este objetivo se estiman las probabilidades de re-entrada y salida de la pobreza a través de las funciones de supervivencia y se aplica la metodología de las cadenas de Marko...

En este artículo se generalizan los resultados de Hey y Lambert (1980) sobre la privación relativa al caso en que los individuos se comparen no sólo con quienes forman parte de su grupo, sino también con quienes pertenecen a otras poblaciones. Para ello se obtiene el valor medio de la privación de una población respecto a otra, lo que permite estab...

En este artículo se propone una formulación para la privación/satisfacción relativas, bajo la hipótesis de que los individuos muestran una preocupación por el status. Se obtienen, en primer lugar, las funciones que proporcionan la privación, satisfacción y satisfacción neta asociadas a cada nivel de renta, se estudian sus propiedades y se calculan...

A partir de la definición de privación formulada por Hey y Lambert (1980), se propone un esquema de ponderación, dependiente de un parámetro de carácter distributivo, al agregar la privación asociada a los distintos niveles de renta, lo que permite expresar la privación media de la sociedad como el producto de la renta media de la población y el ín...

En este artículo, a partir de la descomposición del índice de Gini, se analiza el efecto que tiene la aplicación de un código impositivo sobre los niveles de desigualdad y de bienestar, en una población de la que se considera una partición en subpoblaciones homogéneas respecto a un conjunto de características, distintas de la renta, que tienen inci...

En este trabajo se propone un modelo con el que se estima el peso relativo del capital humano y físico en la formación de las rentas familiares. El modelo se ha estimado utilizando como fuente estadística la Encuesta Básica de Presupuestos Familiares 1990-91. El procedimiento de estimación empleado es el de los mínimos cuadrados parciales (PLS) int...

This paper studies the effects of public transfers on progresivity and redistribution in andalusian homes by analysing the "Encuesta de Presupuestos Familiares 1990-1991". The methodology normally used in the tax framework has been adapted for this purpose. The contributory retirement pension is the transfer with the highest level of contribution t...

This paper introduces and analyses, both normatively and statistically, a class of inequality measures. This class generalizes and comprises different well-known families of inequality measures as particular cases. The elements of this new class are obtained by weighting local inequality evaluated through the Bonferroni curve. The weights are the d...

In this paper, given an income distribution and from the potential moments, measured respect to the origin, of the Lorenz curve and its dual curve, both considered as distribution functions, two families of inequality measures are built. One of them is Aaberge (2000) indexes and the other coincides with the generalized Gini coefficient (Yitzhaki, 1...

This paper evaluates to what extent differences between countries in the composition of their population and in structural characteristics can explain country differences with respect to the gender effect on poverty. Our study aims to advance research on the structural dimension to the predominantly individually oriented study field of poverty. To...