Being a woman in an ICT job: an analysis of the gender pay gap and discrimination in Spain

Despite policy initiatives aimed at promoting female access to jobs, the information and communication technology (ICT) professions have traditionally been largely monopolised by men. Segregation, gendered stereotypes and environmental factors have a clear impact on educational and professional choices, as well as on working conditions. The spread of ICT to all economic activities has meant that ICT specialists are now to be found everywhere, not only in the ICT sector where many stereotypes related to technical jobs persist. This work aims to analyse the gender wage gap and discrimination in ICT professions, with the emphasis on how working in an ICT-intensive industry might affect that situation. The study uses the Spanish Earning Structure Survey data for 2014, and applies wage decomposition techniques to the wage distribution. The results show that female ICT professionals face unfavorable working conditions, especially in highly qualified jobs and in ICT-intensive industries.     

Domestic GHG emissions and the responsibility of households in Spain: looking for regional differences

The aim of this article is to analyze the responsibilities of Spanish households, as final consumers, for the generation of domestic greenhouse gases emissions (GHG), by region of residence, distinguishing between NUTS 1 and NUTS 2 (autonomous regions). The motivation is the process of convergence experimented by Spanish regions based on the strong economic growth experienced by the country until 2008, which could results in different emissions responsibilities because of different lifestyles and production structures. We examine in depth the relationships between a representative household in each region and its patterns of consumption. Although we do find a relationship between per capita income and regional responsibility for pollution generation, it is based on a demand scale effect, which overlaps the effects of the regional consumption patterns. Thus, in the richest regions (Madrid, Northeast, East), despite their having a less polluting pattern than other regions, the level of per capita embodied emissions is higher, due to their higher level of consumption. This scale effect, and the linkages between regional responsibilities for emissions and household consumption patterns are analyzed using linear models based on Social Accounting Matrices. The basis of the estimations is the regional emission intensity (average emission per euro spent by each type of regional home).     

The Internationalization Strategy of Spanish Indigenous Franchised Chains: A Resource‐Based View*

In this paper, we identify characteristics of Spanish franchised chains that favor the adoption of an internationalization strategy and those that have a negative influence from a resource‐based perspective. Data used were drawn from Annual Franchise Guidebooks published in Spain for 2005. Various independent variables were taken into account and the final sample included 316 Spanish franchised chains. In order to detect relevant differences between chains with some degree of internationalization and those that only operate in the Spanish domestic market, we conducted a discriminant analysis to discover which of the independent variables contributed significantly to a correct classification of chains to their corresponding group (those that have chosen to spread activities abroad and those that have not).     

Identification in nonparametric limited dependent variable models with simultaneity and unobserved heterogeneity

We extend the identification results for nonparametric simultaneous equations models in Matzkin (2008) to situations where the observations on the vector of dependent variables might be limited, and where the number of exogenous unobservable variables is larger than the number of dependent variables.     

The impact of immigrant concentration in schools on grade retention in Spain: a difference-in-differences approach

Since the late 1990s, Spain has played host to a sizeable flow of immigrants who have been absorbed into the compulsory stage of the education system. In this article, our aim is to assess the impact of that exogenous increase in the number of immigrant students from 2003 to 2009 on grade retention using Spanish data from PISA 2003 and 2009. For this purpose, we use the difference-in-differences method as a dose treatment capable of detecting whether the immigrant concentration has had a significant effect on student performance. Our results evidenced that their arrival does not on average decrease school promotion rates with respect to 2003 and is even beneficial to native students. However, although the concentration of immigrant students at the same school does have a negative impact on immigrant students generating more grade retention, native students are unaffected until concentrations of immigrant students is above 15%.     

Explaining innovation in mature industries: evidences from Italian SMEs

In recent years management scholars and practitioners have been interested in innovation in high-technology industries. However, little attempt has been undertaken to examine factors affecting innovation in mature industries, such as agro-food. In this paper we tried to fill this literature gap. We hypothesise that weak-collaborations have a positive effect on firms’ innovations. We test our hypotheses on a sample of Italian agro-food firms. We discuss our results and present some theoretical and practical implications.     

Sustainable Consumption: Proposal of a Multistage Model to Analyse Consumer Behaviour for Organic Foods

Explanatory models of consumer behaviour can be used to steer decision‐making in the complex task of designing generic strategies to increase sustainable consumption. This paper proposes an operational model which assumes that the purchase of an organic food is a complex process that can be broken down into phases. It is applied to a concrete case – organic olive oil in the Spanish market – quantifying each phase to determine which ones should be acted on to increase demand. Results indicate that it is possible to adopt the model proposed, and that the problems hindering consumption are a lack of confidence in organic certification, not perceiving differences between organic and conventional foods, and the perception of barriers in their purchase. Given the context, marketing communications strategies have a key role to play. This model can be used to analyse the specific situation of each market and propose development strategies. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Las condiciones laborales en la industria exportadora del norte de Marruecos. Entre el marco jurídico y la realidad de los actores

Las empresas exportadoras de productos manufacturados y de servicios del norte de Marruecos siguen un sistema de producción caracterizado por la alta presión, la flexibilidad, la supervisión directa y el cuestionamiento de ciertos derechos laborales. En el presente trabajo se estudian las condiciones laborales de estas empresas a partir del modelo teórico de la «economía global localizada», estableciendo una diferenciación según el tipo de empresa, la rama de actividad económica y la categoría profesional. Los resultados muestran cómo la reforma laboral de 2004, que adaptó la normativa a los convenios internacionales, ha servido para otorgar mayor poder a la empresa transnacional.     

Systemic risk in the Angolan interbank payment system – a network approach

ABSTRACT

In this work, we analyse the topology of the network of interbank payment flows settled via the real-time gross settlement system (RTGS) of the Angolan payment system (APS) during the fourth quarter of 2016, with the aim of discussing the APS resilience to systemic risk, focusing on its vulnerability in case of failures in the settlement of any bank payments. We conclude that (i) the Angolan RTGS payment network is sparse, characterized by low connectivity, (ii) it is a scale-free network with five banks with high connectivity, representing the main origin and destination of the settled transactions and concentrating about 47% of the total volume and amount of payments settled, which adds to contagion risk. However (iii) the systemic risk arising from the removal of a single participant from the network is low, since the largest bank in the system, with the greatest transacted volume and amount, accounts only for about 11% of the total transacted amounts. In addition, (iv) the adequate risk-mitigating operational processes of each of the RTGS subsystems safeguard the APS from systemic risk.