Productivity,Infrastructure and Human Capital in the Spanish Regions

We revisit the cointegration relation among output, physical capital, human capital, public capital and labour for 17 Spanish regions observed over the period 1964–2011. Our approach is based on the estimation of a panel data model where cross-section dependence is allowed among the members of the panel. The paper emphasizes the idea that common factors capturing, for instance, total factor productivity, should be accounted for when estimating the parameters. We use several proposals to estimate the long-run relation among these variables, which render consistent and efficient estimates of the parameters.     

Is democracy compatible with global institutions?

The salience and relevance of the currently existing global institutions raise the question of their compatibility with some reasonable notion of democracy. I hold that democracy, as a form of government based on social consent, can be operationalized with different institutional formulas, mostly depending on the territorial scale and the degree of conflict of interests of the issues submitted to collective decision-making. Democratic institutional formulas include the people’s assembly in small cities, party elections of representatives in large states, and expert accountable rulers at the global level. Analogously to how democracy was scaled up from the city level to the state level in early modern times, it needs to be scaled up to the global level by the design and adoption of appropriate institutional formulas.     

Smart destinations and the evolution of ICTs: a new scenario for destination management?

The impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on tourism and their foreseeable future evolution seem to be shaping a new scenario for destination management. This new context has given rise to the need for new management models. One of these models is the emerging smart tourism destination (STD), although it requires greater conceptual precision in order to become a new paradigm for destination management. This paper proposes a systemic model for STDs which facilitates the interpretation of the role of ICTs in the management of tourism destinations. Accordingly, the Delphi technique has been applied so as to determine the opinion of experts regarding the feasibility of the STD approach, its advantages and limitations and also the size of the impact of ICTs on the management and marketing of tourism destinations. This prospective exercise highlights the intensification of the impact of ICTs over the coming years which will shape a new scenario for management characterised by technology and data management. However, the efficiency of the STD approach will not depend exclusively only on technology but also on an appropriate governance of the destination that systematically incorporates the three levels of the STD, namely the strategic–relational, instrumental and applied levels.     

The financial contribution of customer-oriented marketing capability

This article assesses the financial contribution of marketing capability. In contrast with previous research, which conceptualizes marketing capability as the deployment of marketing resources to achieve sales, this study conceives marketing capability as the deployment of marketing resources to achieve the ultimate objectives of customer satisfaction and brand equity (i.e., customer-oriented marketing capability [COMC]). Thus, this research disentangles the dynamic relationships among marketing resources, sales, customer satisfaction, and brand equity through the use of network Data Envelopment Analysis to capture COMC. According to what the value relevance perspective proposes, COMC positively influences the growth of Tobin’s q and improves the growth of analysts’ recommendations. These findings remain robust and consistent with the use of additional measures and methods common to the marketing and financial literatures. Our study provides tools and a framework for analysis for managers to maximize their ability to use marketing strategy to drive performance.     

Nationality and low-cost trip duration. A microeconometric analysis

This study examines the determinants of trip duration of international tourism using low-cost carrier services from the UK, Germany, France and Italy; top tourist emitting countries in the EU. Data is from a survey conducted for one of the largest low-cost carriers tourist markets; the Girona–Catalonia region in Spain. A model of traveller/tourist demand is estimated using an econometric duration model. It is found that that while there are some common effects for associated with the four nationalities of tourist, some differences exist relating to such things as age or education.     

Cost-effectiveness of glatiramer acetate and interferon beta-1a for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis,based on the CombiRx study

Background:

To assess the cost-effectiveness of the Disease Modifying Treatments (DMT), Glatiramer Acetate (GA) and Interferon beta-1a (IFN) in monotherapy alone and in combination for the prevention of relapses among Spanish patients aged between 18–60 years old with established Relapsing–Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS).

Methods:

A Markov model was developed to represent the transition of a cohort of patients over a 10 year period using the perspective of the Spanish National Health Service (NHS). The model considered five different health states with 1-year cycles including without relapse, patients with suspect, non-protocol defined and protocol defined exacerbations, as well as a category information lost. Efficacy data was obtained from the 3-year CombiRx Study. Costs were reported in 2013 Euros and a 3% discount rate was applied for health and benefits. Deterministic results were presented as the annual treatment cost for the number of relapses. A probabilistic sensitivity analysis was performed to test the robustness of the model.

Results:

Deterministic results showed that the expected annual cost per patient was lower when treated with GA (€13,843) compared with IFN (€15,589) and the combined treatment with IFN?+?GA (€21,539). The annual number of relapses were lower in the GA cohort with 3.81 vs 4.18 in the IFN cohort and 4.08 in the cohort treated with IFN?+?GA. Results from probabilistic sensitivity analysis showed that GA has a higher probability of being cost-effective than treatment with IFN or IFN?+?GA for threshold values from €28,000 onwards, independent of the maximum that the Spanish NHS is willing to pay for avoiding relapses.

Conclusion:

GA was shown to be a cost-effective treatment option for the prevention of relapses in Spanish patients diagnosed with RRMS. When GA in monotherapy is compared with INF in monotherapy and IFN?+?GA combined, it may be concluded that the first is the dominant strategy.     

Measuring persistence of U.S. city prices: new evidence from robust tests

This article revisits the empirical analysis in Cecchetti et al. (Int Econ Rev 43:1081–1099, 2002) involving long-span U.S. city prices, who estimated the persistence of U.S. price differentials to be around 9 years. After controlling for the structural breaks in the data, we find that U.S. city price level differentials are I(0) stationary processes with the median half-life of convergence ranged between 1.5 and 2.6 years, estimates that are in accordance with what should be expected from a highly integrated economy as the United States. Our results are also robust to a pairwise test of price level convergence.     

A directional test of exponentiality based on maximum correlations

In Fortiana and Grané (J Stat Plann Infer 108:85–97), we study a scale-free statistic, based on Hoeffding’s maximum correlation, for testing exponentiality. This statistic admits an expansion along a countable set of orthogonal axes, originating a sequence of statistics. Linear combinations of a given number p of terms in this sequence can be written as a quotient of L-statistics. In this paper, we propose a scale-free adaptive statistic for testing exponentiality with optimal power against a specific alternative and obtain its exact distribution. An empirical power study shows that the test based on this new statistic has the same level of performance than the best tests in the statistical literature.