In this paper we provide a general equilibrium model that helps explaining payment choice at the retail level: cash, electronic and paper-based instruments. In particular, it provides theoretical foundations to reconcile previous empirical evidence on this issue. The payment pattern of a given...

This paper analyzes the relationship between human capital and convergence with a model that takes into account the different effects of human capital accumulation on regional convergence. As an input, human capital produces convergence due to both decreasing returns and public intervention on...

The expansion and intensification of banking competition, which has occurred inSpain during the last ten years, has allowed banks and savings banks to define theircompetitive strategies with more freedom. This paper analyzes the similarities andthe differences in their product mix along with its...

This paper ana1yzes the behavior of productive efficiency in the Spanish Regions for the period 1964-1989. From a growth accounting approach, it describes the regional evolution of total factor productivity (TFPs), based on a private input production function. A more strict efficiency measure is...

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 paper analyses the importance of different technological inputs (R&D and human capital) and different spillovers in explaining the differences in patenting among Spanish regions in the period 1986-2003. The analysis is based on the estimation of a knowledge production function. A region¿s...

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 analizes the effect of education on job productivity, via improvements in workers humaii capital. Together with conventional measures of human capital such as the average years of school attainment, some alternative measures which take into account the distribution by levels of...

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...

According to neoclassical models, economies converge to their steady-states. In this paper we confirm that both significant differences among Spanish regions¿ steady-states and fastconvergence to them exist. We analyse their time stability over the period 1964-93 and their possible...