The education pillar of the Europe 2020 strategy: a convergence analysis

Empirica - In March 2010, the European Commission launched the Europe 2020 strategy ‘for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth’ in the EU. Education is a major pillar of the Europe...     

Sustainability accounting regulation in Spanish public sector organizations

In 2011, the Spanish government made sustainability accounting mandatory for public sector organizations. This paper documents why, despite the new legislation, the quantity and quality of sustainability accounting practices remains low.     

Retailers’ Price Positioning and the Motivational Profiling of Store‐Brand Shoppers: The Case of Spain

In recent years, retailers have worked to advance store‐brand strategies, leading to greater success and higher congruence with the retailer's positioning. In this new competitive context, this research aims to characterize store‐brand shoppers in terms of motivation and benefits sought, as well as analyze, on the basis of congruence theory, the moderating role of a retailer's price positioning on store‐brand shopper characterizations. The empirical study combines survey and household panel information related to leading retailers in Spain; the findings reveal that store‐brand shoppers are motivated by their price sensitivity, whereas they are less sensitive to service quality and name brands. However, the retailer's price positioning exerts a moderating effect on shopper profiles: In less price‐oriented retail chains, store‐brand purchases seem motivated less by price and more by quality, brand awareness, and brand reputation.     

Commitment and Lapse Behavior in Long‐Term Insurance: A Case Study

This article presents a case study of a portfolio of individual long‐term insurance contracts sold by a Spanish mutual company. We describe the risk levels, the rating structure, and the implied cross‐subsidies on a portfolio of policies providing health, life, and long‐term care insurance. We show evidence of reclassification risk through the history of disability spells. We also analyze the lapse behavior and seek to provide a rationale for the portfolio’s dynamics. We discuss the lack of commitment from the policyholders (lapses) and from the mutual company (which took a run‐off decision). Finally, we draw conclusions regarding the design of such contracts.     

The determinants of efficiency: the case of the Spanish industry

The aim of this paper is to analyse the factors explaining the technical efficiency of Spanish industrial sectors during the period 1991–1994 using the Survey of Business Strategies (SBE) of the Ministry of Industry and Energy. It analyses whether efficiency can be explained by factors external to the firm such as the degree of competition in the markets in which it operates, characteristics of the firm (size, organization, advantages of location, participation of public capital, etc.), as well as the effects of dynamic disturbances that may affect the degree of utilization of the productive capacity.     

Inequality and Unemployment Patterns in Europe: Does Integration Lead to (Real) Convergence?

The economic convergence criteria adopted in the Maastricht Treaty and the fiscal discipline of the Stability and Growth Pact enforced nominal convergence, leaving aside real convergence indicators. In this paper, we use cluster analysis to examine the convergence patterns of income inequality, absolute redistribution (a measure of governments’ effectiveness in correcting for inequality) and unemployment. The expected outcome after years of economic integration was, ex-ante, convergence to a single cluster. Our results, however, uncover a variety of groups, implying that economic integration has not led to real economic convergence. Moreover, the existence of different patterns suggests: (i) that traditional classifications (Anglo-Saxon, Continental European, European Periphery, and Nordic models) remain broadly valid; (ii) that there is no unemployment-inequality trade-off to be exploited in terms of economic policy; and (iii) that the redistributive capacity of governments plays a pivotal role in coping with inequality without negative effects in terms of unemployment.     

Argentina: Macroeconomic Crisis and Household Vulnerability*

Using panel data from the Argentine Permanent Household Survey, this paper analyzes which households were more vulnerable to the Argentine macroeconomic crisis during 1999–2002. Results suggest that the impact of the crisis was not uniform across households, which differed in their ability to cope with shocks. In particular, households with more children, and whose head was male, less educated, and employed in the private sector were the most vulnerable, suffering larger than average declines in income. Shocks to labor income were significant, with both unemployment rates and unemployment spells increasing throughout the period, particularly during the peak of the crisis towards the end of 2001. Individuals with low levels of human capital (proxied by education and experience), males, and self‐employed were more likely to lose their jobs. Public sector employees, in contrast, were more protected from the impact of the crisis on employment.     

A metafrontier directional distance function approach to assessing eco-efficiency

This paper uses directional distance functions to extend the non-parametric metafrontier approach to efficiency measurement proposed by O’Donnell et al. (Empir Econ 34:231–255, 2008) to the assessment of technological differences in eco-efficiency between groups of producers. Furthermore, eco-efficiency is assessed at the level of specific environmental pressure management. This methodology is applied to a sample of Spanish olive producers that belong to both traditional mountain and traditional plain growing systems. We find great potential for both olive growing systems to reduce environmental pressures. In terms of pressures on natural resources, the most eco-efficient technology is the traditional plain system, while the traditional mountain system is the most eco-efficient when considering pressures on biodiversity. These results might help policymakers design strategies to improve the performance of olive growing and meet the demands of society regarding the economic and ecological functions of this farming activity.     

Pension fund manager skills over the economic cycle: the (non-)specialization cost

We study whether pension fund managers, as professionals of important social and financial products, are able to add value for their clients and adapt to economic changes. To this end, we analyze the performance and skills (market timing and stock picking) over the economic cycle from both pension fund and manager perspectives. This double analysis allows examining whether skills reside in managers and/or funds and control for manager substitutions. Despite the long-term nature of pension funds, we find that both fund and manager skills vary with market conditions, showing better evidence of stock-picking in booms, and of market timing in recessions. Nonetheless, top (bottom) funds and managers exhibit both (incorrect) skills in booms and in recessions. Some of the top (bottom) funds and managers are the best (worst) in both abilities in the same periods, but not in different periods, showing that not all managers have the ability to adapt to market conditions. Additionally, managers with limited skills tend to specialize because diversification requires multi-task skills and the non-specialization of these managers usually results in incorrect skills.