Public capital and productive efficiency in the Spanish regions (1964–89) (original) (raw)

Convergence Across Spanish Regions: New Evidence on the Effects of Public Investment

Review of Regional Studies, 2003

We examine the empirical relationship between public investment and per capita income growth in the Spanish regions over 1965-1997. Using a neoclassical growth model with public and human capital, a convergence equation is derived and estimated using panel data techniques. Besides providing evidence of conditional convergence, the results show a non-positive effect of productive-public investment on the rate of regional economic growth. The impact of public investment in education and health is not clear. Robustness checks addressing potential endogeneity and specification problems reaffirm our results. It is concluded that there are no simple recipes for effective regional investment policies.

The Sources of Spanish Regional Growth and Convergence

This article reviews the patterns of growth in Spain and its 17 regions from a long term perspective. It starts with the basic features of growth in Spain, highlighting the poor performance of labour productivity. The analysis confirms that the slow advances of productivity are a common problem for all regions, although with different intensities. This problem is analyzed from two different perspectives: the structure of production by industry; and the decomposition of the sources of growth. We break down the labour factor into quantity and qualification levels, and we consider three types of capital: new technologies (ICT); infrastructures, and the rest of capital (non infrastructures, non ICT). The analysis uses β and σ convergence definitions to examine the degree of regional convergence of productivity and its determinants.

Public investment and convergence in the Spanish regions

Estudios sobre la Economía …, 2002

This paper studies the empirical relationships that exist between public investment and per capita income growth over the period 1965-1995 in the different Spanish regions. Using a neoclassical growth model with public and human capital, we derive a convergence equation, estimated through panel data techniques. Besides providing evidence in favour of the conditional convergence hypothesis, the results show the negative effect of productive public investment on the rate of regional economic growth. Also, both public investment in education, although not very significant, and public resources devoted to health investment have a positive correlation to the increment of per capita income. Alternative estimates to deal with the possible endogeneity of some variables as well as changes in the specification, confirm most of the previous results. A simple two-sector model of endogenous growth is presented to explain these results.

Growth and Convergence Profiles in the Spanish Provinces (1965-1997)*

Journal of Regional Science, 2005

Economic performance in Spanish provinces has led to a considerable improvement in standard of living of their populations. Intense capital accumulation since the 1950s played a key roll in this process. Provincial inequalities may increase or decrease as a result of this growth pattern. This study analyzes the evolution of the disparities by means of distribution dynamics techniques. It explicitly considers economic size of each province and whether spatial spillovers exist. Results indicate that the convergence process has been especially intense for labor productivity, total factor productivity, and capital intensity, while for per capita income the patterns of convergence are less marked. When we weight our analysis according to economic size of each province, our conclusions do not hold. However, when we take geographic location into account, we find support for our conclusions.

Growth and Convergence Profiles in the Spanish Provinces (1965-1997&rpar

Journal of Regional Science

Economic performance in Spanish provinces has led to a considerable improvement in standard of living of their populations. Intense capital accumulation since the 1950s played a key roll in this process. Provincial inequalities may increase or decrease as a result of this growth pattern. This study analyzes the evolution of the disparities by means of distribution dynamics techniques. It explicitly considers economic size of each province and whether spatial spillovers exist. Results indicate that the convergence process has been especially intense for labor productivity, total factor productivity, and capital intensity, while for per capita income the patterns of convergence are less marked. When we weight our analysis according to economic size of each province, our conclusions do not hold. However, when we take geographic location into account, we find support for our conclusions. Copyright Blackwell Publishers, 2005

Convergence and public investiment: Regional policies revisited

Regional economics: New …, 2008

This paper aims to add new arguments upon the debate on the effectiveness of regional policies. We present an endogenous growth model with two regions where the crucial issue for removing regional disparities is public investment. When the model is checked using data from Spanish regions, we do not find evidence of convergence, in spite of the redistributive character of the regional allocation of public investment.

Is there any relationship between public investment and economic growth in the spanish regions?

This paper offers an introduction to the empirical relationships between public investment and regional economic growth in Spain over the period 1965-1995. We use a neoclassical theoretical framework for two regions with public capital subject to congestion and spillover effects from infrastructure situated in neighbouring regions. Next we derive a convergence equation that is estimated using panel data techniques. This enables us to control unobserved specific characteristics; furthermore, we take account of possible endogeneity problems. Our provisional results suggest that public investment has not played an important role in regional growth rates during period specified.

Convergence and public investment: Regional policies revisited

2005

The aim of this paper is to add new arguments to the debate on the redesign of regional policies. An endogenous growth model is presented with two regions where the crucial issue for the removal of regional disparities is public investment. When testing the model using data obtained from Spanish regions, evidence of convergence is not found, in spite of