Financial Social Accounting Matrix: a useful tool for understanding the macro-financial linkages of an economy

This article extends the traditional methodology of social accounting by building a Financial Social Accounting Matrix (FSAM) and a corresponding Satellite Asset–Liability Matrix for Spain. In so doing, the difficulties that typically arise in consolidating data from the National Bureau of Statistics (INE) and the Bank of Spain (BdE) were overcome. This is the first FSAM for the Spanish economy and might provide new tools to deepen the analysis of the financial sector and of the determinants of financial vulnerability associated with interactions with other sectors of the economy. As a novel contribution to the literature, this paper incorporated a structural path analysis grounded in the FSAM multiplier to identify the principal paths through which financial shocks are transmitted.     

The invention of the Barcelona Gothic Quarter

The Barcelona Gothic Quarter was re-constructed in the twentieth century. Although theoretically historic monuments refer back to past epochs, in many cases they were produced recently. In Barcelona, medieval buildings were restored in a gothic style, while other historic buildings and facades were moved stone-by-stone into the area and ordinary residential houses were removed and replaced by seemingly historic buildings. As a result, the new Gothic Quarter seems to be a space which is completely medieval but was actually re-built between 1927 and 1970. This re-creation was meant both as an example of the invention of tradition in the context of Catalan nationalism and as a way to promote the city through spectacular historic monuments, irrespective of whether they were materially authentic. In this context, this article focuses on the second phase of this process, in the commoditisation of heritage alongside city marketing, stressing the relationship between the touristic promotion and the production of urban space. It also examines the principal reconstructions in the neighbourhood and how this process of changing a residential area into a space for tourist consumption were the first signs of gentrification in Barcelona.     

Regional Exports and Economic Growth: The Case of Spanish Regions

Different variables have been considered growth enhancing. Traditionally, physical capital, human capital, and public capital have been considered. While the first two variables have been considered positive factors, the latter shows an ambiguous effect. The literature has also considered the role of exports in the economic growth process, introducing several arguments that test the hypothesis that exports are growth enhancing. One argument to be considered is that higher exports can increase total factor productivity due to returns to scale and that exports are an effective means to introduce advanced technology. To test this argument, an empirical analysis considered three possibilities, an export model, a demand model, and a mixed model that combined both. This empirical analysis was carried out for the various Spanish regions.     

What differentiates Internet shoppers from Internet surfers?

This work analyses the motivations behind consumers' online shopping intentions for specific tourism services, such as hotel reservations, across both Internet shoppers and Internet surfers (i.e. those who exit the website before completing the reservation). A structural equation analysis features a sample of 1289 Spanish Internet users (530 shoppers and 759 surfers). The results indicate that perceived usefulness is the most important aspect conditioning the intention to buy online for Internet shoppers, whereas the role of convenience is more significant for Internet surfers. The empirical findings suggest different managerial guidelines for encouraging online reservations by Internet surfers and can help facilitate decision making processes for managers in this industry.     

The saving–investment correlation and origins of productivity shocks

This paper shows how savings and investment can be positively correlated despite capital being perfectly mobile across countries. The saving-investment (SI) correlation depends on the origin and the volatility of macroeconomic (productivity) shocks, the persistence of these shocks and country-size. Simulating a two-country Real Business Cycle (RBC) model we show that as the variance of common shocks increases (relative to country-specific shocks), as the persistence of these shocks decreases and as country-size increases, the SI correlation increases. Using annual data from 1960 to 2002, productivity changes in 11 OECD countries are decomposed into common and country-specific shocks (from which foreign shocks are also constructed). The empirical findings show that the 11 countries share a statistically significant common component in productivity changes and common shocks generally account for at least half of the variations in the countries’ productivity changes. We then use the estimated variances of the shocks, in addition to each country's size, in the RBC model to compute the predicted SI correlation for each country, under the assumption that capital is perfectly mobile. The predicted SI correlation is then compared to the actual correlation to assess the relative degree of capital mobility in the 11 countries. The findings indicate that Norway, the Netherlands and the US have the highest degree of capital mobility whereas in Canada, Sweden, Belgium and Japan capital mobility has been the lowest.     

Monetary policy design in the european union: Problems and possibilities

The main goal of this paper is to estimate if the money supply and interest rate in the various European Union countries are exogenous or endogenous. This analysis turns is essential since, if both variables happened to be endogenous, the search for another variable to be used as a proximate target could be tried. Some authors have suggested that the exchange rate is likely to be that variable.     

Logistic regression and world income distribution

Using logistic regression, this paper studies the relationship between the high and nonhigh income countries and a set of indicators of human progress and economic growth. The results show that expenditure on education is the single most relevant factor helping economies to move in the direction of high income countries.     

Data,information and knowledge: have we got it right?

Economists make the unarticulated assumption that information is something that stands apart from and is independent of the processor of information and its internal characteristics. We argue that they need to revisit the distinctions they have drawn between data, information, and knowledge. Some associate information with data, and others associate information with knowledge. But since none of them readily conflates data with knowledge, this suggests too loose a conceptualisation of the term information. We argue that the difference between data, information, and knowledge is in fact crucial. Information theory and the physics of information provide us with useful insights with which to build an economics of information appropriate to the needs of the emerging information economy.JEL Classification: A12, D20, D80, M21Correspondence to: Agustí CanalsA. Canals, Av. Tibidabo, 39-43. 08035 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain     

Do CEO characteristics influence a firm’s investment in brand equity? Evidence from Chinese listed firms

This paper contributes to the upper-echelons theory by extending the investigation of how CEO characteristics, namely gender, age, tenure, education attainment, and duality, influence firms’ strategic decisions regarding brand equity investment. We gather 8830 firm-year observations from the Chinese listed firms for the period of 2012 to 2018. We develop several hypotheses and use a probit regression specification to test each hypothesis. The empirical results show that a CEO’s tenure and duality have a positive influence. Interestingly, the CEO’s age has a negative influence while their gender and education have no significant influence on a firm’s propensity to invest in brand equity. It indicates that longer tenures and duality lead CEOs to be confident making them more willing to invest in high-risk projects. It also indicates that older CEO’s are risk-averse, while gender does not play a role in the risk-taking appetite of the CEO. The results provide several implications for firms looking to develop influential brands, especially in China.