The persistence of unemployment and the natural rate in Spain

The concept of the natural rate of unemployment is central to policy making because it indicates the capability of an economy to increase the growth of employment without increasing inflation. Since it is a nonobservable variable, an empirical counterpart must be estimated. The methodology used is based on a system of simultaneous equations that combines nominal developments (wage and price data) with the structural and institutional features (real data) of the economy. Hence, estimates of the natural rate and potential output which are consistent between themselves are obtained. They are both robust in terms of their relationship to actual wage and price inflation and comprehensive in terms of their underlying structural determinants.     

Fiscal policy and private consumption behaviour: The Spanish case

In this article we analyse whether the Ricardian equivalence hypothesis is a valid approximation for Spains 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 rather sparse empirical literature on the subject for the Spanish case. The analysis is based on annual aggregate data for Spain covering the years 1955 to 2000, and uses both the structural and the Euler equation approaches to test the neutrality proposition, and is thus to be considered as a generalization of foregoing work on the Spanish economy.The findings indicate that support for Ricardian equivalence is mixed, while we also find very little support for the Keynesian specification of consumption and fiscal policy.First revision received: March 2003 / Final version received: October 2003The authors wish to thank M. Ferré, J.M. González-Páramo, A. Marchante, P. Meguire, F. Pedraja, J.L. Raymond, J. Salinas and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions on this paper. We also thank the participants in the V Encuentro de Economía Aplicada (Oviedo, Spain, June 2002) and the XVII Simposio de Análisis Económico (Salamanca, Spain, December 2002) for their comments. Any remaining defects are our responsibility. We also are grateful to the Institute for Fiscal Studies of Spain (Ministerio de Hacienda, Secretaría de Estado de Hacienda) for its financial support.     

The Stochastic Seasonal Behaviour of Natural Gas Prices

Previous studies have explored the seasonal behaviour of commodity prices as a deterministic factor. This paper goes further by proposing a general (n+2m)‐factor model for the stochastic behaviour of commodity prices, which nests the deterministic seasonal model by Sorensen (2002) . We consider seasonality as a stochastic factor, with n non‐seasonal and m seasonal factors. The non‐seasonal factors are as defined in Schwartz (1997) , Schwartz and Smith (2000) and Cortazar and Schwartz (2003) . The seasonal factors are trigonometric components generated by stochastic processes. The model has been applied to the Henry Hub natural gas futures contracts listed by NYMEX. We find that models allowing for stochastic seasonality outperform standard models with deterministic seasonality. We obtain similar results with other energy commodities. Moreover, we find that stochastic seasonality implies that the volatility of futures returns follows a seasonal pattern. This result has important implications in terms of option pricing.     

How does working capital management affect the profitability of Spanish SMEs?

This paper analyzes the relation between working capital management and profitability for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by controlling for unobservable heterogeneity and possible endogeneity. Unlike previous studies, we examine a non-linear relation between these two variables. Our results show that there is a non-monotonic (concave) relationship between working capital level and firm profitability, which indicates that SMEs have an optimal working capital level that maximizes their profitability. In addition, a robustness check of our results confirms that firms?? profitability decreases as they move away from their optimal level.     

A mixed-mode sensitive research on cannabis use and sexual addiction: improving self-reporting by means of indirect questioning techniques

In this article, we describe the methods employed and the results obtained from a mixed-mode “sensitive research” conducted in Spain to estimate certain aspects concerning patterns of cannabis consumption and sexual addiction among university students. Three different data-collection methods are considered and compared: direct questioning, randomized response technique and item sum technique. It is shown that posing direct questions to obtain sensitive data produces significantly lower estimates of the surveyed characteristics than do indirect questioning methods. From the analysis, it emerges that male students seem to be more affected by sex addiction than female students while for cannabis consumption there is no evidence of a predominant gender effect.     

Market reaction to supranational banking supervision in Europe: Do firm- and country-specific factors matter?

This paper investigates the financial market´s perception regarding the effectiveness of the Single Supervisory Mechanism in Europe. Do investors believe that centralized supervision adds value compared to multiple supervision? . Do they feel uncertain about the supervisory role of the ECB? To answer these questions, a sample of 118 European Banks has been used finding that whereas in early dates the market reaction was positive reflecting the expectation of greater stability, it turned negative at the time the scope of the supervision was limited to only a group of banks. As might be expected, the reaction is significantly more negative for the directly supervised entities, anticipating a different and more demanding style of supervision that could lead to higher cost. This negative wealth effect is intensified for banks with higher price-to-book ratios or those located in countries with more developed financial systems and better investor protection. However, solvency and productivity firm indicators or low levels of perceived corruption moderate it. This research not only highlights the doubts and uncertainty of investors about the final applications of the SSM, but it could be also useful for policy makers and regulators in order to achieve a more harmonized supervision that improves the credibility of the systems and promote financial stability.

     

Does indigenous and campesino traditional agriculture have anything to contribute to food sovereignty in Latin America? Evidence from Chile,Peru, Ecuador,Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico

The current challenge for world agriculture is to provide food for a growing population, within a context of environmental degradation and economic inequality. The challenge is how to produce accessible, healthy, diverse, nutritious, safe and abundant food in a way that is sustainable, allowing farmers to exert food sovereignty while at the same time addressing ecosystem conservation. The aim of this study is to explore the potential contribution of traditional agriculture to food sovereignty and also to understand the challenges that indigenous communities are facing today. Our case studies are from six Latin-American countries: Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico, where we carried out semi-structured, guided visits and field observations. Our results shed light on how traditional agricultural knowledge, techniques and practices can contribute to these issues, but also to the need of protecting and recovering the cultural and ecological heritage. There is a need to resolve public management issues, related to development investment, technological packages, cultural loss and gender. If these are not addressed, the potential contribution of ancient agricultural knowledge will fail to contribute to strengthen food sovereignty and maintain the local markets, which are also places for seed exchange, knowledge sharing and social networking.     

Socio-emotional wealth and corporate responses to environmental hostility: Are family firms more stakeholder oriented?

Do family firms care more for different stakeholders than nonfamily firms when operating in a hostile business environment? This study addresses this question and fills the existing void in family business research. It shows that family-controlled firms adopt corporate social responsibility strategies and balance the demands of internal and external interest groups to preserve their socio-emotional wealth while facing fierce competition, resource scarcity, and penurious economic conditions. More specifically, our analysis of an international sample of 956 listed firms from 2006 to 2014 reveals that family firms show a higher level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and better stakeholder orientation than nonfamily firms. Our findings are useful for managers, policymakers, and responsible investors.     

The virtuous circle of human resource investments: A precrisis and postcrisis analysis

We propose a dynamic model of positive feedback between human resource (HR) investments and companies' economic performance. The model assumes that HR investment increases profitability through labor productivity and, in turn, profitability improves HR investment through organizational slack. Based on data from a sample of 2,497 industrial companies over a 7‐year period (2005–2011), longitudinal analysis corroborates the existence of a two‐way relationship between HR investment and profitability over time. However, the emergence of an economic crisis weakens this feedback, identifying the effect of organizational slack on HR investment as the weakest causal chain link. In a postcrisis period, HR investment is not such a high priority for managers.