This paper analyses the evolution of competition in the Mexican banking system in the period 1993-2005, a period of deregulation, liberalization and consolidation of the sector. For this purpose we use two indicators of competition from the theory of industrial organization (the Lerner index and...

This paper analyses the determinants of interest margins of the banking firms.Our starting point is the methodology developed in the original study by Ho andSaunders (1981) and later extensions, but widened to take banks¿ operating costsexplicitly into account. In the developed model the...

This paper analyses the evolution of inequality among twenty-four countries belonging to the OECD during the period 1962-1993, using the database provided by this Organization. It argues the relevance of distinguishing between the two variables that arehabitually considered in the analysis of...

This paper analyses the importance of R&D activities in the explanation of productivitydifferences among the Spanish regions over the period 1986-96. With this aim, we measure the effectof the own technological innovation and the spillovers effects. The analysis is based on the estimationof a...

In this paper we analyze firms' ability to tacitly collude on pricesin an infinitely repeated duopoly game of vertical productdifferentiation. We show that firms collude if and only if their discountfactor is high enough, i.e. if they value future profits sufficiently. We alsoshow that a lower...

We consider a continuous spatial economy consisting of pure exchange local economies. Agents are allowed to change their location over time as a response to spatial utility differentials. These spatial adjustments toward higher utility neighborhoods lead the spatial economy to converge to a...

This paper is founded in a previous estimation of the stock of capital of theSpanish economy incorporating two new developments. First, this new estimation is anestimation of the directly productive capital stock of the Spanish economy, whosepurpose is to know its productive capacity. Second,...

This study analyses the evolution of market power in the banking sectors of the European Union based on the estimation of Lerner indices. Using a panel of 18,810 observations of the banking industries of Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom during the period 1992-99, the results...

This paper questions the empirical evidence of the relationship between inequality and growth on the basis of the estimation of convergence equations. The criticisms are aimed in two directions - at the quality of the data and at the standard estimation procedure. It begins by describing in...

This paper shows the importance of the composition of production -productive specialization- and sector inefficiencies when evaluating efficiency in aggregate production. For this purpose, a new approach is proposed for obtaining efficiency scores which enables two components to be...