This paper examines how local governments adjust their spending, savings and taxes in response to a temporary revenue windfall generated by a housing boom and how they cope with the inevitable shortfall that appears during the bust. We focus on Spanish local governments given the intensity of the last housing boom-bust experienced there and the large share of construction-related revenues they obtain. We find, first, that just a small share of the boom windfall was saved, with revenues being used primarily to increase spending (above all, current spending) and (to a lesser extent) cut taxes. Second, we find that the failure to save during the boom is higher in places with less informed voters and more contested elections. Third, we also examine what happens during the bust, and find that these governments had to cut abruptly their spending (above all, capital), raise taxes, and allow deficits to grow. Finally, in places wit less informed voters and more contested elections local governments had more trouble in adjusting during the bust, and they tend to rely more on spending cuts than on tax increases.
Solé-Ollé, A. (IEB, XREAP); Viladecans-Marsal, E. (IEB, XREAP)
This paper analyzes the effects of immigration on waiting times for the National Health Service (NHS) in England. Linking administrative records from Hospital Episode Statistics (2003-2012) with immigration data drawn from the UK Labour Force Survey, we find that immigration reduced waiting times for outpatient referrals and did not have significant effects on waiting times in accident and emergency departments (A&E) and elective care. The reduction in outpatient waiting times can be explained by the fact that immigration increases natives’ internal mobility and that immigrants tend to be healthier than natives who move to different areas. Conversely, we observe higher outpatient waiting times in places to which native internal migrants have moved. Finally, we find evidence that immigration increased waiting times for outpatient referrals in more deprived areas outside of London. The increase in average waiting times in more deprived areas is concentrated in the years immediately following the 2004 EU enlargement and disappears in the medium term (e.g., 3 to 4 years).
Giuntella, O., Nicodemo, C. (GEAP, XREAP), Vargas Silva, C.
This paper studies the effects of immigration on the allocation of occupational physical burden and work injury risks. Using data for England and Wales from the Labour Force Survey (2003-2013), we find that, on average, immigration leads to a reallocation of UK-born workers towards jobs characterized by lower physical burden and injury risk. The results also show important differences across skill groups. Immigration reduces the average physical burden of UK-born workers with medium levels of education, but has no significant effect on those with low levels. These findings, together with the evidence that immigrants report lower injury rates than natives, suggest that the reallocation of tasks could reduce overall health care costs and the human and financial costs typically associated with workplace injuries.
Giuntella, O., Mazzonnay, F., Nicodemo, C. (GEAP, XREAP), Vargas Silva, C.
This study (i) compares the competence levels of the adult population in a set of OECD countries; (ii) assesses the comparative efficiency with which the education system in each country transforms schooling into competences, distinguishing by educational level, and (iii) tracks the evolution of this efficiency by birth cohorts. Using PIAAC data, the paper applies standard parametric frontier techniques under two alternative specifications. The results obtained under both specifications are similar and identify Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Japan as being the most efficient and Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, Ireland and Poland as the least efficient. The evolution of the efficiency levels by age cohorts shows that higher education is more efficient for younger cohorts, while lower and upper secondary education present a stable trend over cohorts.
Huertas, I. P.; Raymond, J. L. (GEAP, XREAP); Calero, J. (IEB, XREAP)
In this paper, survey data are used to document the presence of gender gaps in selfemployment, employership, and labor force participation in seven Balkan countries and Turkey. The paper examines the quantitative effects of the gender gaps on aggregate productivity and income per capita in these countries. In the model used to carry out this calculation, agents choose between being workers, self-employed, or employers, and women face several restrictions in the labor market. The data display very large gaps in labor force participation and in the percentage of employers and self-employed in the labor force. In almost all cases, these gaps reveal a clear underrepresentation of women. The calculations show that, on average, the loss associated with these gaps is about 17 percent of income per capita. One-third of this loss is due to distortions in the choice of occupations between men andwomen. The remaining two-thirds corresponds to the costs associated with gaps in labor force participation. The dimensions of these gender gaps and their associated costs vary considerably across ages groups, with the age bracket 36–50 years being responsible for most of the losses.
Previous results show that gender diversity increases the probability firms’ innovation. This paper explores the relationship between gender diversity of R&D departments and their capacity to patent. Based on the Spanish Community Innovation Survey between 2004 and 2014, we have applied a two-step procedure control for endogeneity. Our results show that gender diversity affects a firm’s capacity to patent in different manners depending on the coverage of the patents. On the one hand, gender diversity affects OEPM patents negatively, while the impact becomes positive for patents with an international coverage (EPO, USPTO, or PCT). This analysis is relevant in order reveal the dual effect of gender diversity within R&D teams on their capacity to process and register patents.
Teruel, M. (GRIT, XREAP); Segarra-Blasco, A. (GRIT, XREAP)
Public Private Partnerships (PPP) have become common in providing high-quality infrastructure in many countries worldwide. One of the main reasons for PPP agreements is to improve efficiency and quality in the delivery of public services, as well as to boost investments for expensive projects. Despite PPPs having been particularly widespread in the case of the construction and rehabilitation of high-capacity road infrastructure, their impact in terms of road safety outcomes is still unexplored. This paper studies the effects of PPPs on road safety outcomes by taking advantage of the variety of management models provided in the Spanish highway network. Results based on a panel-data fixed-effects method show that the most relevant aspect influencing road safety outcomes is the quality of design of the road. However, we find strong evidence suggesting that privately operated highways perform better in terms of road safety outcomes than publicly operated highways, for roads with a similar quality of design.
Albalate, D. (GiM-IREA, XREAP), Bel, P. (GiM-IREA, XREAP)
Starting from the question: “What is the accident risk of an insured?”, this paper considers a multivariate approach by taking into account three types of accident risks and the possible dependence between them. Driven by a real data set, we propose three trivariate Sarmanov distributions with generalized linear models (GLMs) for marginals and incorporate various individual characteristics of the policyholders by means of explanatory variables. Since the data set was collected over a longer time period (10 years), we also added each individual’s exposure to risk. To estimate the parameters of the three Sarmanov distributions, we analyze a pseudo-maximumlikelihood method. Finally, the three models are compared numerically with the simpler trivariate Negative Binomial GLM.
The taxation of high-income earners is of importance to every country and is the subject of a considerable amount of recent academic research. Such high-income earners contribute substantial amounts of tax and generate significant positive spillovers, but are also highly mobile: a 1% increase in the top marginal income tax rate increases outmigrations by around 1.5 to 3%. We review research into taxation of high-income earners to provide a synthesis of existing theoretical and empirical understanding. We offer various avenues for potential future theoretical and empirical research.
Esteller-Moré, A. (IEB, XREAP); Piolatto, A. (IEB, XREAP); Rablen, M. D.
We study whether incumbents facing uncontested elections channel public spending towards co‐partisan officials more than is the case of incumbents that are worried about their chances of re‐election. To do so, we draw on data detailing capital transfers allocated by Spanish regions to local governments during the period 1995‐2007. Using a regression discontinuity design, we document strong and robust effects. We find that, on average, a mayor belonging to the same party as that of the regional president obtains nearly twice the amount in grants as is received by a mayor belonging to an opposition party. This effect is much greater for regional incumbents that won the previous election by a large margin, but it disappears in the case of highly competitive elections. The effects estimated by difference‐in‐differences are not so great but they point in the same direction. Overall, the results are consistent with predictions that regional incumbents focus on obtaining the most votes possible when elections are strongly contested, while they seek to increase the number of aligned mayors when their position at the ballot box is not vulnerable.
Curto-Grau, M. (IEB, XREAP); Solé-Ollé, A. (IEB, XREAP); Sorribas-Navarro, P. (IEB-XREAP)