Suchergebnisse

This paper examines the relationship between fiscal decentralization and internal conflict in 77 countries during the period 1972-2000. The results show that the devolution of scal power to subnational tiers of government reduces the incidence of civil conflict. This finding is robust to the inclusion in the analysis of the degree of political decentralization and of a number of control variables commonly employed in the literature. Likewise, the observed relationship does not depend on the estimation strategy or the specific measures used to quantify the degree of fiscal decentralization and the incidence of civil conflicts within the various countries.

Este trabajo examina las disparidades espaciales en términos de desarrollo en el interior de los Estados miembros de la UE. Para ello se utilizan datos correspondientes a 272 regiones pertenecientes a 28 países a lo largo del periodo 1996-2010. El análisis llevado a cabo confirma que la desigualdad en el interior de los diferentes países es un componente importante de la desigualdad espacial observada en el conjunto de la UE. De hecho, la desigualdad regional ha aumentado en la mayoría de los países de la UE durante el período objeto de estudio. Los resultados también ponen de manifiesto la relevancia de los procesos de desarrollo nacional a la hora de explicar la evolución de la desigualdad regional, si bien la relación no es lineal. Los avances del PIB per cápita nacional inicialmente contribuyen a aumentar las disparidades regionales. No obstante, una vez alcanzado un determinado nivel de desarrollo la relación se hace negativa, de forma que los países más desarrollados tienden a experimentar menores niveles de desigualdad regional. Asimismo, la apertura de las fronteras nacionales a los mercados internacionales está asociada con mayores disparidades espaciales. Al mismo tiempo, los países con una mejor calidad institucional se caracterizan por registrar menor desigualdad regional. Estos resultados no dependen de la medida concreta utilizada para capturar la magnitud de las disparidades espaciales en el interior de los diferentes países. ; This paper examines spatial disparities in terms of development within EU countries, using data for 272 regions in the current 28 member states over the period 1996-2010. The analysis carried out confirms that within-country inequality is an important component of overall inequality across European regions. Indeed, regional inequality increased in most EU countries throughout the study period. The results also underline the relevance of national development for within-country inequality, although the relationship is not linear. The advances in national GDP per capita first increase regional inequality. However, beyond a threshold level, the link turns from positive to negative and richer countries tend to experience lower levels of regional inequality. Moreover, the opening of national borders to international markets is associated with higher regional inequality in the EU countries. At the same time, countries with better quality of government have lower levels of regional inequality. These results do not depend on the specific measure used to quantify the magnitude of regional disparities within the sample countries.

This paper examines the relationship between political equality and quality of government. Our hypothesis is that political equality fosters access to inclusive education and ultimately promotes good governance. We empirically test this hypothesis using data for 145 countries with different levels of economic development. In order to overcome potential endogeneity problems, our identification strategy exploits the variation in political equality in geographically neighbouring countries by means of spatial econometric techniques. The results reveal a positive and statistically significant effect of political equality on the quality of government. This implies that countries where political power is more evenly distributed tend on average to have higher levels of institutional quality. In fact, this result is not affected by the inclusion in the analysis of a substantial number of controls that may be correlated with both political equality and quality of government, including the extent of democracy and the degree of economic inequality. In fact, the observed link between political equality and governance remains robust to alternative measures of quality of government, estimation techniques, and other sensitivity checks. Our estimates also show that education acts as a transmission channel linking political equality and quality of government.

This paper examines the relationship between quality of government and regional resilience in the European Union during the Great Recession. The results show that the quality of government is an important factor when shaping the regional reaction to the crisis. Our estimates reveal that higher quality of government is associated with greater regional resilience over the Great Recession. This is partly due to the role played in this context by spatial spillovers induced by the quality of government in neighbouring regions. The observed link between governance and regional resilience is robust to the inclusion in the analysis of different explanatory variables that may affect both government quality and regional resilience. Likewise, our findings do not depend on the specific dimension of governance considered, the estimation method or the econometric specification employed to capture the nature of spatial spillovers. ; This research has benefited from the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Projects ECO2015-64330-P and ECO2016-76681-R).

This paper investigates the empirical relationship between globalisation and civil conflict in a sample of 159 countries over the period 1972–2009. To that end, we use a measure of globalisation that distinguishes the social and political dimensions of integration from the economic dimension, thus allowing us to adopt a broader perspective than in most of existing studies. The results show that the inclusion of country fixed effects removes the statistical association between the degree of integration with the rest of the world and the incidence of internal conflict. We present instrumental variables estimates that also show no causal effect of globalisation on civil conflict. These findings do not depend either on the specific dimension of globalisation considered or the measure of conflict used in the analysis. Likewise, the absence of a relationship between globalisation and civil conflict is not driven by countries located in the most conflictive regions in the world. ; This research has benefited from the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Projects ECO2011‐29314‐C02‐01 and ECO2015‐64330‐P).

This paper investigates the empirical relationship between globalization and in-trastate conflict in a sample of 160 countries over the period 1970-2009. To that end, we use a measure of globalization that distinguishes the social and political dimensions of integration from the economic dimension, thus allowing us to adopt a broader perspective than in most of existing studies and examine the effect of these three distinct aspects of globalization on civil violence. The results of the paper show that the degree of integration with the rest of the world contributes significantly to increasing the incidence of civil wars, in direct contrast to arguments which defend that globalization has the beneficial effect of deterring internal armed conficts. In particular, the dimension of globalization that most robustly relates with internal confict is economic integration. Our findings are not affected by the inclusion of additional explanatory variables in the analysis, or by changes in the definition of civil war. Likewise, the relationship observed between the degree of integration and civil violence does not seem to be driven by countries located in the most confictive regions in the world. ; Roberto Ezcurra gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Project ECO2011-29314-C02-01).

En este trabajo se examina la dinámica de la distribución regional del producto por empleado en la Unión Europea entre 1977 y 1999 a partir de técnicas de estimación no paramétricas. Asimismo, se analiza cuál ha sido la contribución regional y sectorial a la convergencia en productividad observada en el ámbito europeo a lo largo del período contemplado. Para ello se utiliza una metodología novedosa que combina una formulación alternativa del análisis shift-share con diversos resultados procedentes de la literatura dedicada al estudio de la distribución personal de la renta. La evidencia empírica aportada sugiere que la desigualdad regional en productividad en la Unión Europea está estrechamente relacionada con la existencia de diferencias intrínsecas entre regiones. En cualquier caso, los resultados obtenidos también ponen de manifiesto el importante papel desempeñado por el componente nacional a la hora de explicar los desequilibrios territoriales observados. Adicionalmente, las conclusiones alcanzadas permiten respaldar la relevancia teórica de los modelos de crecimiento unisectoriales a la hora de explicar las disparidades regionales en renta por habitante en el ámbito europeo. ; This paper applies non-parametric techniques to examine the evolution of the entire distribution of regional productivity in the European Union between 1977 and 1999. In addition, we study the importance of the respective roles played by regional and sectoral factors in the convergence of productivity observed in the European context. To achieve this aim, we consider a new methodology involving a modification of conventional shift-share analysis and various results reported in the literarure on personal income distribution. the impirical evidence provided suggest that regional inequality in productivity in the European Union is closely linked to intrinsic differences between regions. Likewise, the analyses developed reveal the major role played by the national component in the explanation of regional disparities in product per worker ...

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la movilidad de la distribución de la renta por habitante a escala regional en la Unión Europea durante el período 1977-1996, con el fin de aportar elementos complementarios sobre la naturaleza de la desigualdad interregional. Para ello se utiliza una metodología novedosa basada en el cálculo de una serie de indicadores empleados habitualmente en el estudio dinámico de la distribución interpersonal de la renta. Los resultados obtenidos sugieren que el nivel de movilidad intradistribucional es relativamente bajo. Asimismo, la evidencia empírica aportada muestra la existencia de una tendencia hacia la reducción de la movilidad regional a lo largo del período analizado que ha coincidido en el tiempo con el mantenimiento de la desigualdad interregional en la Unión Europea. ; The aim of this paper is to analyse the mobility of per capita income distribution in the European regions during the period 1977-1996. In doing so we will attrempt highlight some aspects of the nature of interregional inequality. Our methodological approach involves calculating different indicators commonly used in the dynamic income distribution literature. The results obtained show that the degree of mobility is relatively low within the distribution under analysis. In addition our empirical findings suggest a trend towards a reduction in regional mobility throughout the period of analysis coinciding with sustained interregional inequality in the European Union.

As a contribution to the study of intradistributional mobility, this paper introduces a family of functions whose usefulness as mobility measures is justified by different theoretical results. Indeed, as a particular case, this family includes the Bartholomew index, which is widely used in the literature devoted to the dynamic analysis of personal income distribution. The paper also contains, by way of example, an application to the study of mobility in regional per capita income distribution in the European Union between 1977 and 1999. ; The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support from the MCYT (Project BEC2002-03941) and the Fundación BBVA.

This paper examines productive specialization in the regions of the European Union over the period 1977 to 1999 using the information provided by various methodological instruments. The results obtained reveal a process of convergence in regional productive structures during the twenty-three years considered. This has been due to the behavior of regions with high levels of specialization at the start of the period, whose productive structures have tended to shift towards the European average over time. The analysis carried out also highlights the major role played by regional size, level of development and geographical location in explaining specialization in the European context. Finally, the empirical evidence provided suggests that changes in regional productive structures are closely linked to the evolution of the spatial distribution of per capita income in the European Union. ; The authors wish to acknowledge financial support from MCYT (Project BEC2002-03941) and the Fundación BBVA.

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la movilidad de la distribución de la renta por habitante a escala regional en la Unión Europea durante el período 1977-1996, con el fin de aportar elementos complementarios sobre la naturaleza de la desigualdad interregional. Para ello se calculan una serie de indicadores utilizados habitualmente en el estudio dinámico de la distribución interpersonal de la renta. Los resultados obtenidos sugieren que el nivel de movilidad intradistribucional es relativamente bajo. Asimismo, la evidencia empírica aportada muestra la existencia de una tendencia hacia la reducción de la movilidad regional a lo largo del período analizado que ha coincidido en el tiempo con el mantenimiento de la desigualdad interregional en la Unión Europea. ; The aim of this paper is to analyse the mobility of per capita income distribution in the European regions during the period 1977-1996. In doing so we will attempt highlight some aspects of the nature of interregional inequality. Our methodological approach involves calculating different indicators commonly used in the dynamic income distribution literature. The results obtained show that the degree of mobility is relatively low within the distribution under analysis. In addition our empirical findings suggest a trend towards a reduction in regional mobility throughout the period of analysis coinciding with sustained interregional inequality in the European Union.

This paper examines the distribution dynamics of regional per capita income in the European Union between 1977 and 1999. To achieve this aim, we combine a non-parametric approach with the information provided by various measures used in the literature on personal income distribution. The results obtained suggest that regional inequality and polarisation have decreased in the European context over the period considered. Likewise, the observed level of intradistributional mobility is relatively low. Furthermore, our findings reveal the important role played by the national component and the spatial dimension in the distribution dynamics. ; The authors acknowledge the financial support from MCYT (Project BEC2002-03941) and the Fundación BBVA.