AQR (Grup d’Anàlisi Quantitativa Regional) – Working Papers

URI permanent per a aquesta col·leccióhttps://diposit.ub.edu/handle/2445/67594

"AQR-Working Papers” és la col.lecció de documents de treball del Grup de Recerca Anàlisi Quantitativa Regional (AQR-IREA) que forma part del Departament d'Econometria, Estadística i Economia Espanyola de la Universitat de Barcelona.

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Mostrant 1 - 20 de 138

The shadow of polarization is long: trust in the government and independent institutions after 142 government changes
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2025) Guirola-Abenza, Luis M.; Rivero, Gonzalo
We study how political polarization impacts trust in the government and independent institutions. We gather microdata from 27 countries over three decades and identify 142 government changes. For each of these events, we run a difference in differences design comparing left and right-wing supporters to identify the effect on trust caused by a particular party controlling the executive. The estimated effect ranges from 0 to 2.1 standard deviations, and is systematically larger when party polarization is stronger– this variable alone explains 72% of the variation. The effect propagates onto trust in the European Central Bank and other institutions outside government control. Examining the mechanism, we find evidence consistent with a) lack of knowledge about independence and b) that elections under high polarization are high-stakes events affecting multiple dimensions, including subjective wellbeing, and trust toward the political system as a whole.
Bilingual Education and Identity
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2025) Caminal Echevarría, Ramon; Di Paolo, Antonio; Ferrer i Carbonell, Ada
We present new evidence on the impact of a reform that introduced Catalan-Spanish bilingual education in Catalonia on identity formation. Specifically, we revisit the findings of Clots-Figueras and Masella (2013, The Economic Journal) by examining how exposure to Catalan as medium of instruction affects identity and political preferences. To do so, we use more recent data from repeated cross-sections and multiple alternative sources. Furthermore, we explore an overlooked dimension of identity: self-identification language. At the aggregate level, we find a small but negative effect of bilingual education on the likelihood of identifying as exclusively Catalan. Our results are robust to a battery of sensitivity checks and falsification tests. However, they differ significantly from those of Clots-Figueras and Masella. Our replication of their results reveals a lack of robustness, primarily due to their definitions of identity, as well as to other aspects of their model specification. Our analysis of heterogeneous effects shows that the small negative impact of the reform on identifying as “only Catalan” is entirely driven by individuals from non-Catalan backgrounds, whether in terms of native language or parental origins. For this group, exposure to bilingual education also reduces the likelihood of adopting Catalan as the language of self-identification and support for the independence of Catalonia. These findings suggest that the language-in-education reform might have triggered a backlash effect.
Captive or non-captive: Knowledge sourcing strategies and innovation performance
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2025) Tojeiro Rivero, Damián; Moreno Serrano, Rosina
Prior literature has argued that, although both captive knowledge sourcing (CKS) and non-captive knowledge sourcing (NCKS) are effective strategies for enhancing firm innovativeness, the former plays a more defined role in determining the likelihood of a firm achieving product innovations. However, we contend that the focus should not only be on the decision to innovate but, more importantly, on the profitability firms derive from such innovations. Given that knowledge acquired from external sources can provide firms with ideas that differ from their existing competencies, NCKS may be more advantageous, as the resulting innovations are likely to exhibit higher levels of novelty. Additionally, we examine the complementarity or substitutability between CKS and NCKS in driving innovation. Our findings for Spanish firms suggest that NCKS yields greater benefits than CKS. Moreover, adopting both strategies simultaneously does not result in higher benefits; instead, a minimum threshold of NCKS, above the median, is necessary to realize observable gains. This indicates that firms must demonstrate a substantial level of commitment to NCKS to effectively exploit its potential for generating returns from their most novel innovations.
Income inequality and economic growth in Asian countries
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2025) Clavería González, Óscar
This study examines income inequality across 53 Asian countries from 1990 to 2021, focusing on the application of the Kuznets’ curve theory. This hypothesis states an inverted U-shaped relationship exists between economic growth and inequality, suggesting an initial increase followed by a decline in income disparity as GDP per capita growth. We analyzed data accruing the share of income of the Top 1% income holders of each country, by regions and for the continent as a whole. We employed a fixed-effects panel model with GDP per capita, squared GDP per capita and cubed GDP per capita as explanatory variables. Our results include mixed evidence of the completion of the curve: Asia overall supports the Kuznets’ curve however the regional analysis reveal differences. While East and South Asia present with significant U-shaped relationship patterns, Central Asia shows an inverted N-shaped relationship. Referencing to West and Southeast Asia, they demonstrate similar U-shaped trends however not statistically significant. This research contributes by offering region-specific insights into inequality dynamics relating to economic growth to provide policymakers with tools to target interventions for inclusive development across Asian countries.
China’s Import Competition, Innovation Strategies, and the Role of Unions
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2025) Matano, Alessia; Naticchioni, Paolo
This paper investigates the relationship between China’s import competition and the innovation strategies of domestic firms. Using firm level data from Italy spanning 20052010 and employing IV fixed effects estimation techniques, we find that the impact of China’s import competition on innovation varies depending on the type of goods imported (intermediate vs. final). Specifically, imports of final goods boost both product and process innovation, while imports of intermediate goods reduce both. Additionally, we extend the analysis to consider the role of unions in moderating these responses. We find that, in unionized firms, imports' impact on innovation is mitigated, specifically to protect workers' employment prospects.
School Entry Age Policy and Adolescent Risk–Taking
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2024) López-Mayán, Cristina; Montresor, Giulia; Nicodemo, Catia
This paper investigates the impact of the school entry age policy on adolescent risk–taking behaviors. The policy mandates that children begin primary education in the year they turn six, creating relative age differences within cohorts due to a January 1st cutoff date. Using data from the Spanish School Survey on Drug Use, we analyze a comprehensive set of risky behaviors, including substance use, gambling, gaming, internet use, and sexual activity among students in the early adolescence in compulsory education. Employing an empirical strategy that compares students born in December (young–forgrade) and January (old–for–grade) while controlling for potential confounders, we find that young–for–grade students are less likely to engage in risky behaviors. Findings are consistent across various robustness checks. Further analysis suggests that both absolute age differences and educational cycle effects contribute to these findings. Gender specific patterns reveal distinct effects for boys and girls, while school type shows limited variation. Notably, most behavioral differences diminish by late adolescence in high school. This research broadens our understanding of the non–academic impacts of school entry age policies contributing to the literature on education policy and adolescent development
The impact of the female advantage in education on the family
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2024) Rodríguez González, Ana
Men’s historical advantage in educational attainment has recently been reversed in many countries. I study the implications for family formation of the new female advantage in education in the marriage market, exploiting a Finnish school reform that increased women’s relative level of education. I analyze the reduced-form relationship between marriage market exposure to the reform and family outcomes. I find decreases in marriage and fertility in marriage markets with a larger female educational advantage. These results are mostly driven by the increasing mismatch between the educational distributions of men and women, and might have negative consequences for low-educated men’s mental health.
Taking the Pulse of Fiscal Distress: Inflation, Depreciation, and Crises
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2024) Uribe Gil, Jorge Mario; Valencia, Oscar M.
This study offers novel monthly estimates of the latent probability of fiscal crises for 163 countries, from January 1970 to December 2023. These indicators are constructed with minimal data requirements on prices and exchange rates and serve as a global early warning system for fiscal risk. The probabilities are estimated using a Random Forest model within a Mixed-Data Sampling (MIDAS) framework, trained on manually compiled fiscal crisis events. Using these indicators, we test nine hypotheses on the effects of country characteristics, time periods, and policy choices on the probability of fiscal crises. Countries with inflation-targeting regimes, on average, experience lower fiscal distress. Fiscal rules reduce the probability of crises while higher debt levels increase their likelihood. Our findings are particularly relevant for developing countries, where fiscal risk is higher than in advanced economies, even after controlling for policy choices and country-specific characteristics.
Economic uncertainty and redistribution
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2024) Clavería González, Óscar; Sorić, Petar
This study examines the relationship between economic uncertainty and the redistributive effect of taxes and government transfers in the UK and the US over the period 1980-2021. We find that the sign of the relationship between uncertainty and redistribution goes from being negative at the beginning of the 1980s to taking a positive and significant sign in recent years. In the US, economic uncertainty Granger-causes the redistributive effect of taxes and transfers in the short run, but the same does not hold for the UK
Does decentralization affect local entrepreneurial capacity?
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2024) Garcia-Ruiz Marc
In recent decades, decentralization has become a prominent topic in both academic and political discussions, with research increasingly focusing on its implications for economic development. This paper explores a specific facet of this debate by examining how decentralization influences business creation and the survival of new enterprises at the local level. By leveraging a panel dataset covering regions across multiple countries, we assess whether decentralization promotes entrepreneurship and sustains new businesses, particularly through the mediating role of institutional quality. Our findings suggest that while decentralization encourages business creation, it may reduce short-term firm survival rates. Additionally, strong institutional quality seems to amplify decentralization's positive effect on entrepreneurship and mitigate its adverse impact on the survival rate.
Education and Ethnic Intermarriage: Evidence from Higher Education Expansion in Indonesia [WP]
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2024) Di Paolo, Antonio; Shidiqi, Khalifany Ash
In this paper, we analyse the effect of educational attainments on interethnic marriages in Indonesia, a multi-ethnic emerging country. The empirical analysis is based on data from the Java Island obtained from the 2014 wave of the Indonesian Family Life Survey, combined with administrative data about the location and year of establishment of Higher Education Institutions (HEI). To estimate causal effects, we exploit variation in exposure to HEI by birth year and district of residence in an IV/TSLS framework. Specifically, we employ as instrument for education the number of HEI located in a radius of 10 kilometres from the centroid of the district of residence at age 18. The analysis is carried out at the individual level, with separate estimations for males and females. The results indicate that years of schooling, college attendance and completion positively affect the likelihood of exogamy, i.e. having a partner from a different ethnicity. (...)
Do voice and social information contribute to changing views about rent control policy?
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2024) Brandts, Jordi; Busom, Isabel; López-Mayán, Cristina
Citizens’ ability to make informed and thoughtful choices when voting for policy proposals rests on their awareness of and access to accurate information about the costs and benefits that each proposal entails. We study whether specific social factors affect the disposition to drop a misconception, the belief that rent control increases the availability of affordable housing. We design an on–line experiment to test whether giving voice, aggregate social information and disaggregate social information increase the effect of a video explaining the evidence on the consequences of rent control policies. While voice and aggregate social information do not have an additional effect relative to a control group that is shown the same video, supplying disaggregate social has an additional impact on updating beliefs. Furthermore, we find that changes in beliefs widely translate into intended voting and recommending the video. Finally, although ideological position and a zero–sum mentality are correlated with the initial misconception, these two factors do not thwart the disposition to update beliefs after receiving experts’ information.
Emissions and Allowances in the EU Emissions Trading System after the Paris Agreement
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2024) Cilekoglu, Akin A.
In this paper, I examine how allowances allocation affected emissions of power sector installations in the EU ETS following the Paris Agreements. The dataset I use covers the 2010-2022 period, includes the emissions and allowances of 4,498 installations operating in power sector across the 27 Member States of the European Union. I discover that installations receiving lower allowances in the first quartile (Q1) reduced their emissions by 3.5% from 2016 to 2022 compared to the 2010-2015 period. I find no evidence on the installations in second, third and fourth quartiles due to the country specific developments. I also show that country characteristics have a crucial role in policy effectiveness because the emissions of installations located in lower-income Member States entered into the EU at later stages did not fall.
Economic uncertainty and suicide mortality in post-pandemic England
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2023) Sorić, Maša; Sorić, Petar; Clavería González, Óscar
This paper examines the relationship between different dimensions of economic uncertainty and suicide rates in England from 1985 to 2020, both in the short and long term. The study employs a non-linear autoregressive distributed lag framework for cointegration estimation. This approach allows testing for the existence of possible asymmetries in the response of suicide mortality to increased economic uncertainty. Uncertainty is gauged by different proxies that allow computing financial uncertainty and labour market uncertainty indicators. The analysis is replicated by gender and across regions, controlling for unemployment and economic growth. Overall, the analysis suggests that uncertainty intensified during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is in line with the stylized facts of economic uncertainty and its pronounced role in recessions. When replicating the experiment by gender, we find that women seem to be more sensitive to changes in uncertainty. Regarding the existence of asymmetries, we found that decreases in economic uncertainty have a greater impact on suicide mortality than increases.
A different look at the nexus between entrepreneurship and development using GEM data
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2023) Alzate, Emiliano; Clavería González, Óscar
We propose a new approach for the visual inspection of the dynamic interplay between several determinants of entrepreneurship and other socioeconomic variables. We focused on the evolution of these variables in 23 countries from 2010 to 2020. First, we ranked the countries according to their growth during the sample period. Second, we clustered the diferent states by means of a dimensionality-reduction technique that enabled synthesising the ordinal information of the rankings into two dimensions. Finally, countries were projected into a perceptual map according to their scores in both dimensions. We replicated the analysis both for 2020 and for the growth observed during the decade. In both cases, we observed two clusters of countries that roughly correspond to European and Latin American economies. Angola obtained top scores in the two dimensions both in 2020 and during the decade. Regarding the interactions among variables, for 2020 we observed that early-stage entrepreneurship shows a negative association with access to financing and human development. During the decade, we observed a positive link between early-stage entrepreneurship and market dynamism, which in turn showed no connection with human development. These findings somehow suggest that the relative importance of the determinants of entrepreneurship evolved throughout the decade.
How Have Video-on-Demand Platforms Shaped Our Preferences? Endogenous Preferences in a Cultural Market
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2023) Mallén Alberdi, Bernat
In this paper, I investigate the effect of the introduction of video-on-demand (VoD) platforms on the preferences for diferent language versions of movies. By using survey data gathered from 2014 to 2019 in the bilingual region of Catalonia (Spain), I explore whether the exposure to VoD affected the likelihood of preferring the Catalan, Spanish or original versions. I found a negative effect on the preference for Catalan and Spanish versions, although this was not significant in all the specifications. Regarding the impact of VoD exposure on the preference for original versions, I identified a positive, significant and very robust effect in all the specifications. The effect is heterogeneous and varies depending on an individual’s language, education level and age. These results prove that people adapt their preferences to what they experience, so the introduction of a new technology into a market (in the case of this paper, the movie market) can rapidly change the preferences of consumers, who accustom, or accommodate, their preferences to the new paradigma.
Navigating the Precarious Path: Understanding the Dualisation of the Italian Labour Market through the Lens of Involuntary Part-Time Employment (WP)
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2023) Cuccu, Liliana; Royuela Mora, Vicente; Scicchitano, Sergio
This paper investigates the surge in Involuntary Part-Time (IPT) employment in Italy from 2004 to 2019, exploring its impact on various socio-economic groups and adopting a spatial perspective. Our study tests the hypothesis that technological shifts, specifically routine biased technological change (RBTC), and the expansion of household substitution services contribute to IPT growth. We uncover a widening negative gap in IPT prevalence among marginalized groups- women, young, and less skilled workers. After controlling for sector and occupation, the higher IPT propensity diminishes but remains significant, hinting at persistent discrimination. Additionally, segregation into more exposed occupations and sectors intensifies over time. Leveraging province-level indicators, and using a Partial Adjustment model, we find support for RBTC’s correlation with IPT, especially among women. The impact of household substitution services is notably pronounced for women, highlighting sector segregation and gender norms’ influence.
Income inequality and redistribution in Scandinavian countries
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2023) Clavería González, Óscar; Sorić, Petar
This paper investigates the adjustment of government redistributive policies in Scandinavian countries following changes in income inequality over the period 1980-2021. We use two complementary measures of inequality: the share of total income accruing to top percentile income holders, as well as the ratio of the share of total income accruing to top decile income holders divided by that accumulated by the bottom 50%. We find that the sign of the relationship between inequality and redistribution is mostly positive and time-varying. We also find significant evidence that redistributive measures in the form of taxes and government transfers adjust more rapidly in an upward than a downward direction, with the exception of Norway. We obtain a significant long-run relationship between both variables in Iceland and Sweden, while in Norway it just holds for the short run.
Generalized Extreme Value Approximation to the CUMSUMQ Test for Constant Unconditional Variance in Heavy-Tailed Time Series
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2023) Carrión i Silvestre, Josep Lluís; Sansó Rosselló, Andreu
This paper focuses on testing the stability of the unconditional variance when the stochastic processes may have heavy-tailed distributions. Finite sample distributions that depend both on the effective sample size and the tail index are approximated using Extreme Value distributions and summarized using response surfaces. A modification of the Iterative Cumulative Sum of Squares (ICSS) algorithm to detect the presence of multiple structural breaks is suggested, adapting the algorithm to the tail index of the underlying distribution of the process. We apply the algorithm to eighty absolute log-exchange rate returns, finding evidence of (i) infinite variance in about a third of the cases, (ii) finite changing unconditional variance for another third of the time series - totalling about one hundred structural breaks - and (iii) finite constant unconditional variance for the remaining third of the time series.
Labor Market Monopsony and Firm Behavior: Evidence from Spanish Exporters
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2023) Cilekoglu, Akin A.
In this paper, I develop a method to estimate the effect of firm behavior on labor market monopsony power. Using China’s accession to WTO for the identification, I employ the proposed empirical framework to analyse the impact of Spanish firms’ exports on their labor market monopsony power. The findings suggest that higher exports raised monopsony power of firms in labor markets between 1996 and 2007. After 2001, more intensely exporting firms reduced their wages by 36-45 percentage points and paid their employees around 39-49 percent of their marginal revenue product. Aligned with increased monopsony power, exporting firms experienced a decline labor productivity and labor share while they employed more low-skilled workers and temporary contracts.

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