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Recently, a significant share of the empirical analysis on the impact of public capital on regional growth has used multivariate time-series frameworks based on vector autoregressive (VAR) models. Nevertheless, not as much attention has been dedicated to the analysis of the long-run determinants of regional growth processes using multi-region panel data and applying panel integration and co-integration techniques. This paper estimates the dynamic domestic effects of public infrastructure using a structural vector autoregressive (S-VAR) methodology for the Spanish regions. From a methodological point of view, the paper contains several features that can be viewed as a contribution to the existing empirical literature. First, the important issues of the stationarity of the data and the existence and estimation of cointegrating relationships in the long-run are addressed in the context of the analysis of panel data. Secondly, the long-run cointegrating production function is embedded within structural vector error correction (S-VEC) shortrun models to produce consistent estimates of impulse responses, contrary to many researchers who have estimated unrestricted VAR models in levels or VAR models in first differences. The estimates reveal new results with respect to the previous empirical evidence.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the determinants of labour productivity growth in the hospitality industry in Spain using regional data over the period 1996-2004. The results obtained suggest that the increase in the number of 3-star hotels and the reduction process in the stock of physical capital per worker are factors which may have contributed to the fall in productivity growth. However, increased regional tourism intensity has a positive impact on the growth of labour productivity. Nonetheless, changes in demand-related factors, such as average length of stay and the seasonality of demand, have not had a significant aggregate impact on labour productivity growth during this period.

The relationship between city size and territorial productivity hasattracted much attention in the urban economic literature. Some theories on thefield claim for a strong positive correlation between the size of the municipalitiesand their income, mainly motivated by economical reasons, geographical characteristicsor other factor of the urban environment. Unfortunately, in many countries the empirical research on this topic is not possible given the lack of data of incomeat a local level. This paper proposes the use of entropy econometrics to estimateurban income and urban productivity according to city size from aggregate information,which can be defined as an exercise of ecological inference. With the estimateddata a regional classification based on the relevance of the cities size allowsus to measure the relevance of agglomeration economics on the cities productivityin Spain.

Why do exports grow faster in some regions than in others? The regional literature has traditionally answered this question using a shift-share analysis, which focuses on regional differences in the composition of international exports by industry and destination. In this paper we apply an intensive/extensive margin decomposition framework, which separates the role of new trade relationships, product survival and product deepening to explain the differences in international exports growth across Spanish regions. Unlike the predominance role of the intensive margin in country-level studies, our results show that both the intensive and the extensive margin can be very important components of regional exports growth. Moreover, the relevance of each component varies to a great extent across regions. Our findings suggest that policies implemented to promote exports should be designed at the regional level.

This paper focuses on the new architecture of Cohesion Policy andthe new European financial framework within which it is set. The discussion is dividedinto five sections. Section one examines the structure of the new European FinancialFramework, highlighting its impact on financial transfers between Europeand Spain. In section two the new architecture of Cohesion Policy is explained,pointing out the relationships with related agriculture and fisheries policies and endingwith an assessment of the principal features of the new Cohesion policy architecture.Section three examines the financial resources behind Cohesion Policy andtheir distribution in Spain. In section four the discussion shifts to a consideration ofthe concepts of convergence and the nature of regions. Finally the conclusion suggeststhat there are significant administrative, financial and strategic planning implicationsof the new financial framework and remodelled Cohesion policy: for economicdevelopment in general and for regional development in particular over thecoming years.