Universidad Carlos III de Madrid - UC3M

The research group on Spanish Economy is formed by researchers that conduct basic and applied research in a variety of topics, including Labor Economics, Economics of Education, Health Economics, Household Behavior, Public Economics, Industrial Economics, Agricultural Economics, and other topics in Macroeconomics, Monetary Economics, Growth and Cycles, International Economics and Price Indices.

Most of the group’s research has been focused on Microeconomics, and within this, on Labor Economics and Industrial Economics. In Labor Economics the most important research topics have been labor market performance, with special emphasis on unemployment in Spain, self-employment, and more recently, on immigration, gender, and pensions. Within Industrial Economics, the research topics have been related to Industrial Organization, and to the electric and communications sectors. Other contributions include Economics of Education, Health Economics, and studies on income distribution and on Agricultural Economics.

The current interests of the group include, among others, the following research lines:
(1) Explaining the different response of the unemployment rate in Spain in the actual recession, relative to other economies of the Euro zone such as the case of France.
(2) Studying one of the greatest paradoxes observed in the Spanish economy during the high growth decade from 1997 to 2007, namely, the negative growth of the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) in a period of introduction and expansion of the TICS in the developed economies.
(3) Using data on salaries and their different components from the 2002 and 2006 Salary Structure Survey, analyze whether the gender wage differential can be explained by the regulatory wage base or by the variable components such as bonuses, commissions, productivity complements, piecework payment, etc.
(4) International comparison between Spain and other countries from the South and East Europe, Nordic-Scandinavian countries and Anglo-Saxon countries of the occupational segregation by gender extended to the relationship to economic activity, as well as the time series and the cross section study of the segregation by gender in fields of study within two levels of Vocational Studies, College, and Graduate studies in Spain and the OCDE.
(5) The impact of class size and peer influence on students’ performance in higher education, as well as the effect of the Ramón y Cajal program on the efficiency of the education system.
(6) Econometric models to evaluate the impact of the Common Agricultural Policy Reform; international comparison of productivity in agriculture; and localization and infrastructures as a determinant of housing demand.
(7) The situation of the different sciences in Spain in relation to other countries in Europe, USA, and the rest of the world.

Since the early 80’s, the group’s researchers have published 201 works including monographs, contributions to collective works and, over all, articles in specialized journals. Some features of this publishing effort can be summarized as follows:
(1) The bulk of the contributions are in Microeconomics, where the studies on the demand side and the supply side represent 57% and 27% of the total. The remaining 16% refers to Macroeconomics and other sectors. The most important topics have been Labor Economics (25%), Industrial Economics (18%); Economics of Education, Health Economics, Public Economics and Agricultural Economics, each representing about 10%.
(2) About half of these papers have been published in international journals, and approximately 12% in top journals. Among the papers published in national journals, about 15% corresponds to the best Spanish journals.

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

c/ Madrid, 126 - Despacho: 11.2.02

28903 Getafe - Madrid - Spain

Phone: 91.624.5896 - 91.624.9287

Fax: 91.624.9872

E-Mail: instituto.economia@uc3m.es