The cohesion of a society depends to large extend on the degree to which its members coincide in their preferences (the consensus). This paper proposes axioms a consensus measure should satisfy from a normative point of view and characterizes first a class of linear and additive measures which...

In this paper, we suggest new ways of how to measure the similarity of preferences in a group of individuals. For simplicity, we refer to this as the cohesiveness (of preferences). We propose axioms a cohesiveness measure should satisfy and show that these properties fully characterize a family...

We show by means of a laboratory experiment that the relaxation of short–selling constraints causes the price of both an overvalued and an undervalued asset to decrease. Hence, the aggregation of information by the market price becomes better in case the asset is overvalued but worse if the...

We study with the help of a laboratory experiment the conditions under which an uninformed manipulator –a robot trader that unconditionally buys several shares of a common value asset in the beginning of a trading period and unwinds this position later on –is able to induce higher asset...

We study experimentally in the laboratory the situation when individuals have to report their private information (that is commonly known to be the sum of an observable and a random component) to a public authority that then makes inference about the true value hold by each of the individuals....

Recent pension reforms in Spain have been guided by two opposite goals, achieving financial stability and improving redistributive aspirations. In particular, reforms implemented in 1997/2002 entailed a mixture of both through (i) changes in the pension formula, (ii) the extension in the...

After the early 90s crisis, Spain had a long period of prosperity that ended abruptly with the recent global crisis. What many did not realized is that Spain, by following a different growth trajectory than a majority of the EU15 countries, was choosing a wrong detour. In this paper, we argue...

The Social Security system is Spain provides four different types of permanente disability pensions which are granted according to the severity of the disabling condition and the remaining capacity to work that is left for these individuals. Therefore, the system is designed to allow for a...

The purpose of this article is to analyze the growth of the Spanish economy since the advent of democracy until today. In the first part, the specificities of the growth model are analysed, showing that the empirical evidence is not consistent with the conclusions of the standard growth models...

Spain has the world’s lowest business bankruptcy rate (number of formal business bankruptcies divided by number of firms). We document this fact, analyze the Spanish institutional framework and compare it with those of other European countries. We argue that a way to organize the documented...