Julian Ramajo

University of Extremadura | UNEX · Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales

This study investigates the potential role of variations in technical efficiency as a contributing factor in providing explanation for convergence or divergence in West-Europe. To control for spatial dependence among regions, the paper uses a spatial stochastic frontier framework that integrates spatial econometric techniques with stochastic fronti...

The need to be compliant with the fiscal frameworks of the European Union and Spain has generated asymmetric fiscal behavior across the Spanish government tiers regarding the distribution of the needed fiscal efforts to pursue public finance sustainability and macroeconomic stability in the medium-to-long term and to meet citizen needs in the shor...

This article explores the spatiotemporal pattern in the local tax system of Extremadura, a region in the southwest of Spain. Using the most relevant tax in terms of revenues at the local level in Spain, the property tax on urban land, a very general space–time dynamic panel data model with spatial and time period fixed effects, has been estimated t...

This paper uses a novel semi‐nonparametric approach, the so‐called Stochastic Nonparametric Envelopment on Z‐variables Data (StoNEZD), to measure the performance of 279 European regions (in 28 EU member states and Norway) in the years 2000, 2007, and 2014. The StoNEZD approach combines the main virtues of the parametric and nonparametric methods in...

En este trabajo se analiza la evolución de la producción agregada del sistema económico regional español durante el período 2000T1-2023T4, mediante la formulación de un modelo de crecimiento espaciotemporal para las comunidades autónomas españolas que tiene en cuenta la presencia simultánea de dinámica temporal, dependencia espacial transversal, fa...

This paper analyzes the evolution of the aggregate production in the Spanish regional economic system between 2000Q1 and 2023Q4 proposing a spatiotemporal growth model for the Autonomous Communities in Spain that simultaneously accounts for the presence of time-series dynamics, cross-sectional spatial dependence, common factors, and regional hetero...

Applying a spatialized data envelopment analysis, this paper estimates and analyzes the efficiency of European Union NUTS‐2 regions during the period 2000–2014. The space‐dependent efficiency scores estimated with the proposed model show a bimodal distribution that is not detected by the aspatial approach. The results confirm the crucial role of lo...

This paper proposes the development of an index to assess rural development based on a set of 25 demographic, economic, environmental, and social welfare indicators previously selected through a Delphi approach. Three widely accepted aggregation methods were then tested: a mixed arithmetic/geometric mean without weightings for each indicator; a wei...

Expanding the recent spatial econometrics literature on hierarchical models of , this work proposes an extension of the autoregressive spatial hierarchical model (HSAR) to a Durbin spatial hierarchical model (HSDM) that allows taking into account the spillovers produced in the independent variables. For this, the proposed model is estimated to anal...

This paper proposes the development of an index to assess rural development based on a set of 25 demographic, economic, environmental, and social welfare indicators previously selected through a Delphi approach. Three widely accepted aggregation methods were then tested: a mixed arithmetic/geometric mean without weightings for each indicator; a wei...

This paper introduces a new specification for the nonparametric production-frontier based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) when dealing with decision-making units whose economic performances are correlated with those of the neighbors (spatial dependence). To illustrate the bias reduction that the SpDEA provides with respect to standard DEA method...

The distribution pattern of tourist activity in space represents valuable information to improve the management of a tourist destination. This is why there is a trend in the current literature in proposing modelling that allows for the incorporation of how tourist activity is distributed in an operational way in order to characterize and measure th...

There is a general belief that the distribution of tourist activity in space does not respond to a random pattern, so having a thorough knowledge of said activity will require analyzing and understanding its distribution pattern. At the same time, the adequate planning of this sector requires exhaustive knowledge, on the one hand to be able to enha...

The aim of this paper is to provide an institutional explanation for the sharp volatility of economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean, given its persistence over time and the dramatic consequences in terms of poverty for the region. The contribution is to conduct the first analysis of 28 countries during 2002-2010, using a static model of...

El objetivo de este trabajo es ofrecer una explicación institucional a la acentuada volatilidad del crecimiento económico de América Latina y el Caribe, dada su persistencia en el tiempo y las consecuencias dramáticas en términos de pobreza para la región. La aportación consiste en realizar el primer análisis para 28 países durante 2002-2010, media...

This paper explores how corruption indirectly affects economic growth through business regulation in Latin America and the Caribbean, a relationship that has scarcely been addressed in the literature. Although regulation of the private sector explains GDP per capita, the effect is conditioned by the level of corruption. When the control of corrupti...

This paper analyses region-level technical efficiency in nine European countries over the 1995–2007 period. We propose the application of a nonparametric conditional frontier approach to account for the presence of heterogeneous conditions in the form of geographical externalities. Such environmental factors are beyond the control of regional autho...

The estimation of the impact of public investment on regional economic growth requires consideration of the spatio-temporal dynamics among the state variables of each region. Recent austerity policies in Spain that feature temporary decreases in the accumulation of regional public capital should thus be evaluated in terms of their impact on the eco...

This article contributes to the recent literature in spatial econometrics that focuses on space–time data modeling implementing a multilocation time-series statistical framework to analyze a regional system. Drawing on the global vector autoregression approach introduced in Pesaran, Schuermann, and Weiner, a multiregional spatial vector autoregress...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the degree of consensus in the literature on the impact of institutions on economic growth, for which we differentiate between three dimensions: economic, political and social institutions. After a literature review from 1990 to today, as main conclusion we find that, generally,the revised authors find a positive...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the degree of consensus in the literature on the impact of institutions on economic growth, for which we differentiate between three dimensions: economic, political and social institutions. After a literature review from 1990 to today, as main conclusion we find that, generally, the revised authors find a positiv...

*** FREE DOWNLOAD (until October 20, 2016) >> http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Te4qyGFs7IfP *** As has been the case for Spain, the Great Recession has exposed the destabilizing potential of national fiscal decisions which do not adhere to the European rules for the euro area. In this context, we characterize the discretionary behavior of Spanish fi...

This paper provides a spatial vector autoregressive (SpVAR) analysis of growth spillovers for the Spanish regions over the period 1965–2003. First, a spatial Granger causality analysis is performed that indicates the relevant impact of spatial spillover effects across regions in Spain. Second, the empirical research offers a contribution in the con...

How have the effects of Spanish fiscal policy varied over time? Given this starting point, in this article we analyse the regime dependence of fiscal policy in Spain by estimating a vector autoregressive model within a Markov-switching framework. Our results indicate that Spain’s membership of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is the most likel...

Can fiscal policy help to the ending of the economic crisis affecting Spain? Given this starting point, we study the effects on the Spanish economy of a shock to total public receipts or a shock to total public expenditure. With that objective in mind, we specify and estimate a vector error correction model with exogenous variables, using quarterly...

The financial and economic crisis has brought back the spotlight to the PIIGS nations. Although Spain belongs to this group, its impressive fiscal efforts made so far have been recognized by investors and economists alike and have begun to bear fruit. In this context, it would be interesting to characterize the behavior of Spanish fiscal policymake...

Can fiscal policy help to the ending of the economic crisis affecting Spain? Given this starting point, we study the effects on the Spanish economy of a shock to total public receipts or a shock to total public expenditure. With that objective in mind, we specify and estimate a vector error correction model with exogenous variables, using quarterly...

Although the evaluation of European Union regional policy is necessary to improve the effectiveness of the operational programmes, it is not usual to find studies comparing the efficiency of two programming periods for the case of a particular region. This could be explained by the fact that, at regional level, the study of the efficiency of the Eu...

What are the consequences of a fiscal policy measure implemented in a Member State on the rest of the European Union (EU)? Should or should not EU countries coordinate their fiscal policies? Given this starting point, we study the economic consequences of shocks to fiscal variables in the EU countries from both domestic and global perspectives. Wit...

In this paper we study fiscal regime shifts for the Spanish Economy, using a new quarterly dataset of Spanish public finance variables (De Castro et al., 2012) for the period 1986-2012, within a Markov-Switching framework. First, we estimate fiscal policy rules to characterize the behavior of Spanish fiscal policymakers and, second, we estimate a v...

Unequal regional development is a feature of most Latin American countries [LAC] (see Cuadrado-Roura and González-Catalán 2013). As the spatial agglomeration of economic activity has become an important determinant of a country’s economic growth pattern (Puga and Venables 1999), much of the existing empirical research in Latin American has been foc...

El objetivo de este trabajo consiste en analizar el comportamiento de la economía española y, de manera más concreta, estudiar las posibles repercusiones que un shock en alguna de las variables fiscales del país pueda ocasionar sobre el resto. Con este objetivo en mente, se especifica y estima un modelo de vectores de corrección del error con varia...

The effects of public capital on economic growth have received a great deal of attention in the recent economic literature. In this context, our work is focused on the relationship between public and private capital at the regional level. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to formulate a Multiregional Spatial VAR model for the Spanish regional...

After a wave of empirical literature on regional competition focused on issues related to regional convergence, work developed recently has tried to address some of the shortcomings of the previous literature, developing a series of alternative approaches that center their attention on the assessment of regional economic performance. These alternat...

Recently, a significant share of the empirical analysis on the impact of public capital on regional growth has used multivariate time-series frameworks based on vector autoregressive (VAR) models. Nevertheless, not as much atten-tion has been dedicated to the analysis of the long-run determinants of regional growth processes using multi-region pane...

The objective of this article is to study long-run Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) for a panel of 21 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries from the end of the Bretton Woods era by applying a wide range of the econometric techniques available. This will allow us to present a comprehensive up to date examination of the...

In this paper, a combined cross-section and time-series econometric analysis of Spanish regional growth is presented. This analysis operates with a database where the number of cross-sectional units is small for a typical panel of data, while the time dimension is clearly dominant. First, using recent techniques in the econometric analysis of panel...

In the framework of approaches to assessing the impact of public capital on economic growth, this paper estimates the dynamic effects of public infrastructure for the regions of Spain using a structural vector autoregressive (S-VAR) method. Methodologically, the main contribution is the proposal of a novel form (through bi-regional models) of estim...

The objective of this article is to present a new way to incorporate the sectoral dimension within the components of regional growth provided by the traditional shift-share analysis. The new methodology elaborates the way that the dynamics of a specific sector in a region are influenced by the performance of other sectors, the latter decomposed bet...

Within the approaches that have been applied to assess the impact of public capital on economic growth, this paper estimates the dynamic effects of public infrastructures using a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) methodology for the Spanish regions. From a methodological point of view, our work contains different innovative features with resp...

Resumen El objetivo básico del trabajo es investigar los efectos dinámicos de la política fiscal sobre la actividad económica en España. En primer lugar se especifican y estiman modelos VAR estructurales que incluyen las principales variables macroeconómicas de la economía española, así como las dos variables fiscales básicas, ingresos y gastos púb...

Resumen En este trabajo se detectan externalidades vinculadas al comercio interregional mediante un modelo dinámico espacio-temporal de corrección de error para datos de panel. De esta forma, se presenta prueba empírica acerca de la existencia de externalidades interregionales relacionadas con el comercio para las 17 regiones que componen el sistem...

Using a spatial econometric perspective, the speed of convergence for a sample of 163 regions of the European Union (EU) over the period 1981–1996 is estimated. For this purpose, we use a specification strategy which allows an explicit modeling of both spatial heterogeneity and spatial autocorrelation found in the analyzed sample. The estimated fin...

El objetivo del trabajo es analizar los efectos de la política fiscal en la Unión Europea (UE) y, en particular, explorar la posibilidad de que existan externalidades geográficas -spillovers-en el proceso de transmisión de los shocks fiscales nacionales. Para ello, en primer lugar se estiman modelos VAR estructurales (SVAR) para seis países de la U...

RESUMEN El objetivo básico de este trabajo es llevar a cabo una ampliación del modelo shift-share estándar para tener en cuenta la localización geográfica a la hora de analizar el crecimiento de variables económi-cas regionales. De esta forma, se tomarán a las regiones vecinas co-mo un nuevo marco de referencia que va a permitir enriquecer los anál...

Starting from the median voter model commonly used in the literature to analyse the determinants of the functional distribution of public spending, we propose a new multiproduct dynamic model that also allows one to classify the nature of the interaction –complementarity or substitutability– between the different categories of government expend...

The main purpose of this article is to provide empirical evidence for Spain on the dependency relationship between government spending and private consumption at the disaggregated level. To this end, we will use two approaches that extend traditional consumption models, allowing for non-separability of consumers' preferences between public and priv...

The main purpose of this article is to show empirical evidence, for the Spanish case, about the influence of the consumers" preferences on the structure of expenditure of the public sector. With this end, a complete system of demand for public consumption has been specified. Thus, besides the standard variables of the studies of demand of governmen...

En este trabajo se investiga el vínculo existente entre los tipos de cambio nominales y las variables básicas derivadas del modelo monetario, usando datos trimestrales para un grupo representativo de países de la OCDE durante el período 1973.1-2006.1. En primer lugar se analiza la presencia de una relación estable a largo plazo entre las variables...

En este trabajo se investiga el vínculo existente entre los tipos de cambio nominales y las variables básicas derivadas del modelo monetario, usando datos trimestrales para un grupo representativo de países de la OCDE durante el período 1973.1-2006.1. En primer lugar se analiza la presencia de una relación estable a largo plazo entre las variables...

This study analyses some of the empirical determinants of aggregate private saving rates for a panel of 21 OECD countries over the period 1964 to 2001. Among the fiscal determinants considered, there is evidence of an important trade-off between public and private saving and a negative effect of higher current public expenditure on private saving....

In this paper we focus on the dynamic effects under which the regional economic growth processes are accomplished, breaking them down into two broad types: neighborhood and economy-wide effects. By means of a proposed dynamic space – time empirical model, the competition structure within a multiregional economic system is developed. Cointegration a...

In this article we analyse whether the Ricardian equivalence hypothesis is a valid approximation for Spain’s economic reality or whether there exist deviations from that situation which would be more in line with the conventional Keynesian perspective of the effects of debt on private consumption-savings decisions. Our aim is to contribute to the r...

M ) in Portugal along the period 1979/4 - 1998/4. We have studied the stochastic properties of the series involved , the order of integration, and, based on Johansen's cointegration test we have found out a potential equilibrium relationship, understood as a money demand function in the long run. We then proceeded with the estimation of an error co...

. This article uses the most recent tests available to carry out a detailed empirical analysis of the validity of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) for the exchange rates of 21 industrialized countries in the post-Bretton Woods period. It looks at the stationarity properties of the real exchange rates which are required for PPP to hold, and it also ana...

This article intends to highlight the need of considering explicitly the spatial dimension in the empirical analyses in which interfere cut transversal cross facts spatially referenced. Firstly and for this purpose, it will be described in a summarised way the most prominent theoretical aspects of the techniques of spatial econometrics. Subsequentl...

Evidence, whether international or national, of the significance of the links between budget deficits and interest rates, is in general terms inconclusive. The aim of the present work is to contribute new findings for the Spanish economy using annual data for the period 1964-2000. It is found that budget deficits did not appear to raise long-run no...

. El trabajo analiza los determinantes empíricos del ahorro privado usando como soporte un panel de datos sobre 21 países de la OCDE para el período 1964-2001. De entre los factores considerados, se presta especial atención a la significación y magnitud del impacto de las variables asociadas a la política fiscal implementada en cada país. Al nivel...

We consider forecasting in a small and unstable regional economy subject to structural breaks. In this context, we work with two types of regime-shifting databased models using cointegration theory. The objective of the present work is to analyze the out-of-sample forecasting performance of the two approaches used to construct a short-term regional...

Abstract This paper focuses on the ,dynamic ,effects under which ,the regional economic ,processes are accomplished, breaking them down into two broad types: neighborhood (horizontal) and economy- wide (vertical) externalities. So, by means of a proposed dynamic space-time empirical model, it is allowed,to obtain ,the vertical and horizontal compet...

In this paper, an empirical dynamic model is presented in the context of regional economic interconnections. The model builds upon and extends the one proposed by Dendrinos and Sonis (1990) and can be used in order to make explicit the nature of macroeconomic interactions in the growth of regional economies within a multi-regional system. As an app...

Los vínculos entre el déficit público y los tipos de interés no son claros, según se desprende de la evidencia disponible tanto al nivel internacional como nacional. En este trabajo nos planteamos como objetivo inicial realizar una breve revisión al tratamiento que se le ha dado a esta cuestión, tanto desde un punto de vista teórico como empírico,...

Resumen: Este trabajo pretende ampliar los resultados obtenidos en trabajos anteriores, en los que al analizar el comportamiento del consumo privado español, se encontró cierta evidencia a favor de la hipótesis de equivalencia Ricardiana. El análisis de la influencia de la política fiscal sobre el consumo privado puede ser completado por la vía de...

Este trabajo analiza si la hipótesis de neutralidad de la política fiscal (teorema de equivalencia Ricardiana) puede considerarse como una aproximación válida para la realidad económica española o si, por el contrario, existen desviaciones (y de qué tipo) de dicha situación, lo que estaría más en la línea del enfoque Keynesiano convencional acerca...

The possibility of using time-varying parameter models in the context of error correction models is studied empirically. As an application, a money demand relationship (M1) for Venezuela is estimated from 1983 to 1994 within a cointegrated VAR framework. First, the stochastic properties of the series are analysed, studying each corresponding order...

Es indudable el interés que despierta entre los economistas el estudio del comportamiento de los consumidores, y ello se debe a un buen número de razones, entre las que podemos destacar las siguientes. En primer lugar, porque el consumo privado supone buena parte del Producto Interior Bruto (PIB) de los países desarrollados (por ejemplo, en España,...

El objetivo del presente trabajo consiste en analizar el crecimiento económico en las regiones de la UE desde el punto de vista de la dinámica en la distribución de la renta (PIB per capita) disponible. A diferencia de la regularidad encontrada en recientes trabajos empíricos sobre el tema a nivel de países, que sugiere una tendencia temporal hacia...

The methodologies for the construction of business cycle indicators when modeling regional economies, are not exactly the same as the ones used at national level. The available information is more limited at regional level, and the basic methodology at national level must be supplemented taking into account the characteristics of each particular re...

Resumo: O obxectivo fundamental deste traballo é levar a cabo unha análise dos puntos de xiro dos distintos sectores productivos da economía estremeña (agricultura, industria, enerxía, construcción, servicios destinados á venda e servicios non destinados á venda) para, a continuación, presentar unha clasificación das ditas ramas estremeñas con resp...

Traditional tools of econometric analysis building rest in almost all cases on the precept that the structure of economy is stable. This asumption is very restrictive in the case of modeling regional economies, where it is very difficult assume that the future will be similar to the past. The objective of this paper is to investigate the effects of...

The topics related to the income distribution are specially interesting when we try to measure the social and economic impacts of a economic policy given decission. When a strategy of balanced development is tried to imply in a given country or region, inequality, poverty, unemployment, etc, not only economic growth, are important topics. The study...

Las matrices de contabilidad social constituyen un importante instrumento cuantitativo vinculado a la modelización económica. La amplia información que estas matrices incorporan les permite constituir una adecuada base para la construcción de diferentes modelos, con los que valorar los efectos resultantes de distintas medidas de política económica...

This article introduces a new demand model labeled Minflex Laurent almost ideal demand system, which has been achieved by combining the flexible functional Minflex Laurent form with the price-independent generalized logarithm expenditures structure introduced by Muellbauer. The model has been applied to analyze the aggregate demand behavior of fina...

Con el fin de permitir respuestas renta no lineales en el modelo Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) de Deaton y Muelbauer (1980, se propone un sistema de demanda que introduce funciones segmentadas. Este modelo de demanda es estimado con la serie temporal de consumo per cápita de la Economía a Española que abarca desde 1954 hasta 1987. También se an...

El objetivo de este trabajo es el de utilizar la técnica de componentes splines para poder globalizar las aproximaciones de segundo orden a las función de preferencias de un consumidor representativo respecto a la variable renta.

Resumen The main goal of this paper is to measure the cost inefficiency of Portuguese water delivery public service incorporating on the stochastic frontier some exogenous influences on efficiency. For this purpose, we employ a Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier cost function to represent the technology of water distribution service. Empirical result...

Resumen El estudio que se presenta analiza el fenómeno de la dependencia en el ámbito nacional utilizando los datos proporcionados por la Encuesta de Discapacidades, Deficiencias y estado de Salud elaborada por el INE. Una vez constatada la existencia de una estrecha relación entre dependencia, discapacidad y envejecimiento, se estudian conjuntamen...

This paper investigates the link between nominal exchange rates and the basic variables deriving from the monetary model, using quarterly data for a representative group of OECD countries during the period 1973–2006. It first analyzes the presence of a long-run stable relationship between the variables of the model, which would confirm the empirica...

The management of a Pension Fund must take into account the temporal evolution of both its assets and its liabilities. The variables we work with here are returns and factors representing assets and liabilities. The past performance of these variables is analysed statistically and we deduce a vector Eror Correction Model (VECM) to model their behab...