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This article aims to find empirical evidence of the connection between industrial deregulation and the appearance of anticompetitive practices. We test our hypothesis using data on antitrust proceedings in Spain from 1990 to 2003, when the Spanish government undertook intense reforms in several industries.We construct a database of proceedings brought by the Court (Tribunal de Defensa de la Competencia) during that period. Our results show an increase in collusion and trust practices in deregulated industries during that period, which required the government to dedicate additional resources to antitrust policy. We also find that certain regulatory elements and industrial deregulation have positive effects on the number of antitrust proceedings. We also observe that sanctions may induce a learning effect in industries that causes industry participants to modify their behavior. Finally, we find that the existence of a regulatory agency in an industry has no significant effect on antitrust proceedings in that industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After advocating flexibilisation of non-standard work contracts for many years, some European and international institutions and several policy makers now indicate the standard employment relationship and its regulation as a cause of segmentation between the labour market of ‘protected’ insiders, employed under permanent contracts with effective protection against unfair dismissal, and the market of the ‘non-protected’ outsiders, working with non-standard contracts. Reforms of employment legislation are therefore being promoted and approved in different countries, supposedly aiming to balance the legal protection afforded to standard and non-standard workers. This article firstly argues that this approach is flawed as it oversimplifies reasons for segmentation and concentrates on an ‘insider–outsider’ discourse that cannot easily be transplanted into continental Europe. After reviewing current legislative changes in Italy, Spain and Portugal, I argue that lawmakers have focused on ‘deregulation’ rather than ‘balancing protection’ when approving recent reforms. I question the mainstream approach to segmentation and some of its derivative proposals, such as calls to introduce a ‘single permanent contract’, on the grounds that they neglect the essential role of job protection in underpinning the effectiveness of fundamental and constitutional rights at the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political opposition to fiscal adjustments has varied significantly across countries. Our analysis links this variation to differences in the congruence of voter attitudes towards fiscal trade-offs across political blocs in different countries. These differences in attitudes, in turn, coincide with the implications of the distinct macroeconomic growth strategies that these countries pursue. Based on original survey data, we show that in Germany, supporters of different parties not only share similar views on the appropriate size of fiscal adjustment, but also on how to distribute these cuts across various spending items. In Spain, there is fundamental disagreement on the amount of austerity, but voters largely agree on the composition of fiscal adjustments. In the UK, there is disagreement between voters of diverging political blocs on both accounts. Variation in public attitudes, therefore, gives rise to very diverse political dynamics surrounding fiscal adjustments in different countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most scholars have highlighted the commonalities of labour market reforms under austerity in Europe, mostly in terms of liberalization. We argue that a more differentiated analysis is in order, as empirical developments point to distinct reform trajectories. We analyse in detail the two Southern European cases where pressure for austerity was intense, but governments maintained a degree of discretion as they were not subjected to direct bailout conditions: Italy and Spain. We examine the period since 2010, which includes a major labour market reform in each of the two states in 2012. Using a theoretical framework that allows distinguishing forms of liberalization, we find that reforms in the two states indeed differed markedly. In Spain, flexibilization and declining coverage of protection prevailed, whereas in Italy flexibilization was combined with improved protection of workers at the margin of the labour market. The differing influence of the centre-left helps to explain this divergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Austerity measures are commonly adopted to address economic crises. Such measures have particularly adverse effects for women, but studies have found these consequences to be strategically silenced. I explore the conditions under which the gendered effects of austerity are silenced, and by whom. Drawing on an original dataset of 9,420 newspaper articles (2010–2020) addressing austerity measures introduced in Spain, I find that politicians from left parties critique the labor reforms for negatively affecting women's working conditions, while conservative politicians rarely address the reforms from a gender perspective. The party political difference is conditioned by government–opposition dynamics, and the salience of gender perspectives varies with election cycles. These findings suggest that a gender lens is more likely to be present in the public debate on economic policy-making when it is strategically beneficial for garnering political support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the production of problematization spaces at the intersections between gender and entrepreneurship in Spain based on two complementary analytical procedures. First, from a Bakhtinian perspective, the polyphony of the simultaneous voices concerning entrepreneurship of policy actors involved in entrepreneurship programs has been mapped. Second, the political axioms of entrepreneurship promotion policies that stem from the problematizations of women's entrepreneurial shortcomings have been analyzed. A monologic discourse on entrepreneurship, as an identity interpellation project, performs the modes of governing gender inequality. This study demonstrates that in these battles to name , much of the conquest for the government of equality is at stake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains the rise of neo-abolitionism in Europe with reference to the intersection that it enables between the gender and sexual politics of neoliberalism, vulnerability, and security. Analyzing the recent adoption of neo-abolitionist prostitution policies in the United Kingdom, Spain, France, and Ireland, it contends that neo-abolitionism offers a suitable response to the needs that globalized neoliberalism creates for European states, allowing them to extend their control, disguise their moral agenda, and reproduce their material and normative foundations, guaranteeing the reproduction of the population and accumulation of wealth while reasserting their sovereignty and political identity as progressive in gender and sexual terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Keynesian demand regime that existed until the 1970s was characterised by governments steering demand and employment through housing and infrastructure investments. By the 1980s, Western countries began to retreat from these capital-intensive subsidies and turned to the stimulation of homeownership-spreading private mortgage markets, but with three different ideal-typical trajectories until 2008. In construction-repressive countries, like Germany, growing exports were to fill the void of the withdrawing construction engine; in countries with construction booms, like Spain, the mortgage credit expansion temporarily generated another long construction cycle. Conversely, in countries with mortgage booms only, like the UK, mortgages exploded and generated more consumption, but no proportional construction output. We explain the divergence into different trajectories through a policy feedback mechanism: parties in construction (export) economies tend to favour construction (export) policies. While exports, construction and mortgages became alternative drivers of growth, all three trajectories have their downsides which surfaced post-2008 and make them inherently unstable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How did the great recession affect policy and partisan preferences in the most afflicted countries? We theorize the role of a previously under-emphasized source of preferences: the size and scope of one's exposure to other individuals who have been exposed to the crisis. Contact with others who have economically suffered should be an additional channel for the crisis' effects on policy preferences. We gathered data during the recession from a crisis-hit country, Spain, to measure the size of the respondent's social networks in different ways and the impact of the crisis upon them. We also measured a battery of policy and political preferences (support for austerity, the euro, supranational institutions and new parties). We find strong associations between support for anti-status quo policies and anti-establishment parties and exposure to economic suffering within one's social networks in ways that enrich our understanding of the process of preference formation in times of crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Spain's economy was seen as a miracle during the most recent expansive phase (for its labour market outcomes in terms of job growth, among other things), the economy's development during those years suffered from severe problems that deserve attention. This became more relevant in a context like the current one, where there is no consensus around which economic policies might lead the country back onto a stable growth path. Using a systemic approach in which we analyse the growth model, the role of Spain in the European division of labour, the financial sector, the labour market, the public sector, and the distribution of income, we contend that, in contrast with several narratives concerning the crisis in Spain: (i) the 'living-beyond-our-means' discourse is not true; and (ii) certain political and economic aspects, usually missing in those narratives, are essential to understanding the recent evolution of Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to study the impact of wage devaluation policy on the recent recovery experienced by the Spanish economy. For this purpose, we use the theoretical distinction between wage-led and profit-led economies. We address, for the first time in the literature, an in-depth analysis of the Spanish economy using the Bhaduri-Marglin model. We find that the Spanish economy can be characterized as a wage-led economy: a fall in the wage share has a contractionary effect on GDP growth. Our results point to two important conclusions, when we use this model to assess the internal devaluation policy. First, we do not see an export-led recovery in Spain during past years, driven by recent supply-side reforms. And, second, a pro-labour distribution of income would reinforce economic growth: according to our calculations, internal devaluation policy detracted an average of 0.2 percentage points of annual economic growth during the period 2009–17. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the creation of the Euro, the Spanish economy established an exchange rate regime similar to that adopted by many emerging economies during the 1990s. At the same time, the Eurozone as a whole adopted a currency system with features similar to the US currency regime. In emerging economies, as in the US economy, the adoption of these models was accompanied by strong growth in capital inflows, as well as severe financial (mostly banking) and/or macroeconomic (mostly trade) imbalances. Several authors have linked capital inflows with imbalances as cause and effect. This work uses some of those arguments, along with statistical data on the characteristics and evolution of capital inflows registered by the Spanish economy, and by the Eurozone as a whole, in order to propose a causal link between post-Euro exchange rate regimes adopted in Spain, capital inflows, and the imbalances that preceded the financial crisis of 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The family as a social group has experienced a radical change especially after the end of the Second World War. The first question that arises from this concerns the role the legal system has to play when social circumstances change so fast that no sooner has the legislature decided to regulate a situation than it is already overtaken by events that are heading in another direction. To try to find the most appropriate response to this, this article uses different ideological approaches that lead to protecting autonomy as the best way of regulating family circumstances in the present context. The problems of the constitutionality of marriage between persons of the same sex and the protection of independence for those who do not want to marry are analysed from that perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes cross-national and longitudinal variations in criminal laws regulating sexual activities. We blend historical and sociological institutionalisms to argue that criminal sex laws embody exogenous models, supplied by colonial and imperial powers and evolving world society. To test our ideas, we apply logit-panel and pooled-time-series models to original data from more than 150 countries on four aspects of sex laws, 1965 to 2005: (1) maximum prison terms for rape, (2) ages of sexual consent, (3) the existence of sodomy prohibitions, and (4) gender neutrality in adultery regulations. Our analyses confirm the importance of exogenous factors and show that endogenous factors--including the dominance of Islam and the status of women in society--play lesser roles in explaining formal content differences. In supplementary analyses, we explore counterpoint variations, that is, sexlaw reforms that flout global standards, illustrated here by sodomy-law expansions during the period. We find exogenous imprints even in these cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To analyse the impact of labour market trajectory indicators on early retirement, measured by age at onset of permanent disability (PD). Methods: Four labour market trajectory indicators were reconstructed in 14 972 new cases of PD recognized between 2004 and 2010: (1) number of employment contracts, (2) number of unemployment periods, (3) number of periods without social security affiliation and (4) percentage of time spent in inactivity. The outcome was measured as the age at onset of PD. Median differences and 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) were compared using a median regression. Analyses were stratified by sex and adjusted for occupational category and total time elapsed between the beginning of working life and the age at onset of PD: separately for each labour market indicator, and adjusted for each other. Results: In men, the age at the onset of PD for workers with 15 or more employment contracts decreased by 4.8 years; and for workers with five or more periods without affiliation it decreased by 4.6 years. In women, the corresponding decreases were 5.8 years for 15 or more contracts and 7.2 years for five or more unaffiliated periods. The results for four indicators slightly changed when they were mutually adjusted. Conclusions: Poor employment conditions, such as having a high number of periods without affiliation, a high number of contracts (in men) and a higher percentage of inactive time (in women) are associated with early retirement due to PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Work organization in Spain has traditionally been based on a high proportion of passive work. Changes in the labour market in Europe and the economic crisis that began in 2008 may have had an impact on the pace of work in Spain. Aims To estimate the prevalence of exposure to high-strain work and passive work in 2010 compared with 2005 and to analyse the distribution by gender, age and occupation of workers exposed to high strain and iso-strain in 2010 compared with 2005. Methods Two representative samples of the Spanish working population were compared. Unweighted and weighted prevalences in 2010 were calculated and compared with those in 2005. Results In the 2010 sample of 5110 workers, 29% (95% CI 27.8; 30.7) were exposed to high strain (of whom 83% had low social support). There was an increase of 6% (95% CI 3.8; 7.1) in high strain, and of 7% (95% CI 5.2; 8.3) to iso-strain, compared with 2005 (n = 7612). In 2010, as in 2005, the proportion of manual workers exposed to strain and iso-strain was more than double the corresponding proportion in non-manual workers. Conclusions There has been an intensification of work, reduction in social support and a notable increase in exposure to high strain and iso-strain. The class inequalities reflect the segmentation of the Spanish labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]