Open Access
Historia del uranio en España: de la minería a la fabricación del combustible nuclear, c. 1900-1986: reseña
(Asociación Española de Historia Económica, 2022) Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Economía; Ekonomia
Reseña del libro de Esther Sánchez y Santiago López en el que se aborda la historia del uranio en España que, en términos generales, no ha recibido tanta atención historiográfica como las centrales nucleares. Se trata de un libro de encargo, elaborado en colaboración con la Sociedad Nuclear Española (SNE) y está organizado en cuatro grandes capítulos.
Open Access
Energy as an indicator of modernization in Latin America, 1890-1925
(Wiley, 2010) Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Yáñez, César; Folchi, Mauricio; Carreras, Albert; Economía; Ekonomia
In the absence of comparable macroeconomic indicators for most of the Latin American economies before the 1930s, the apparent consumption of energy is used in this paper as a proxy of the degree of modernization of Latin America and the Caribbean. This paper presents an estimate of the apparent consumption per head of modern energies (coal, petroleum, and hydroelectricity) for 30 countries of the region, 1890 to 1925. As a result, it provides the basis for a quantitative comparative analysis of modernization performance beyond the few countries for which historical national accounts are available in Latin America.
Open Access
Energy transition(s)
(Edward Elgar, 2023-09-28) Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Economía; Ekonomia
Any meaningful change from one state of an energy system to another one may constitute an energy transition. Given the many components related to the production, conversion, delivery, and use of energy, it is worth referring to energy transitions in plural. Most of the academic literature about energy transition(s) concentrates on the shifts of the structure of the primary energy supply in the long run, while in parallel, energy systems endure enormous transformations in the quantity, the quality, the methods of conversion and delivery and the destination of final energy. Meanwhile, "the energy transition" has been increasingly adopted as a shorthand for describing a pathway towards transforming the global energy sector away from fossil-based into low carbon emissions, becoming the commonest usage of the term among the public. The concept has evolved from an historical observation about energy systems into a necessary tool for achieving desirable future energy scenarios.
Open Access
Machines and energy. Energy capital ratios in Europe and Latin America 1875 - 1970'
(Taylor & Francis, 2018) Ducoing Ruiz, Cristián; Gales, Ben; Hölsgens, Rick; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Economía
The relationship between energy and capital is one of the most important aspects of modern economic growth. Machines need energy to produce all the goods we enjoy; energy would be far less useful for humankind in absence of machines. However, the great majority of the economic models do not take into account the elasticities of substitution (or complementaries) between these two main variables. Actually, energy is absent in many growth models and discussions on diverging economic development paths. We approach this relevant issue from a new perspective: energy and capital relations during 100 years. We use the latest estimations of capital stock (machinery and equipment) and energy consumption for Latin America and compare them with those of Western Europe. The energy–capital ratio (how much energy is used per unit of capital) could be a predictor of economic growth, thus providing stylised facts about the timing and causes of the different modernisation patterns of these regions and showing us some answers on the long-run relationship between energy consumption and capital accumulation.
Open Access
Indicators and recommendations for assessing sustainable healthy diets
(MDPI, 2021) Martínez Aldaya, Maite; Ibáñez Moya, Francisco C.; Domínguez-Lacueva, Paula; Murillo Arbizu, María Teresa; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Soret Lafraya, Beatriz; Beriain Apesteguía, María José; Institute on Innovation and Sustainable Development in Food Chain - ISFOOD; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE
Research coupling human nutrition and sustainability concerns is a rapidly developing field, which is essential to guide governments' policies. This critical and comprehensive review analyzes indicators and approaches to 'sustainable healthy diets' published in the literature since this discipline's emergence a few years ago, identifying robust gauges and highlighting the flaws of the most commonly used models. The reviewed studies largely focus on one or two domains such as greenhouse gas emissions or water use, while overlooking potential impact shifts to other sectors or resources. The present study covers a comprehensive set of indicators from the health, environmental and socio-economic viewpoints. This assessment concludes that in order to identify the best food option in sustainability assessments and nutrition analysis of diets, some aspects such as the classification and disaggregation of food groups, the impacts of the rates of local food consumption and seasonality, preservation methods, agrobiodiversity and organic food and different production systems, together with consequences for low-income countries, require further analysis and consideration.
Open Access
España y Euratom
(Sociedad Nuclear Española (SNE), 2024) Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Torre Campo, Joseba de la; Economía; Ekonomia
Mientras que las Agencias nucleares de la ONU y la OECE/OCDE nacieron a posteriori de la organización matriz, la Comunidad Europea de la Energía Atómica (Euratom) nació ya como parte de los Tratados de Roma en 1957 que dieron luz a las Comunidades Europeas, y con sus mismos miembros originales (Bélgica, Francia, Alemania Occidental, Italia, Luxemburgo y los Países Bajos). A diferencia del Organismo Internacional de la Energía Atómica (OIEA) y de la Agencia Europea de la Energía Nuclear (AEN), en cuyas discusiones nucleares intervendría España como uno más antes de 1959, la participación formal en Euratom hubo de esperar hasta la integración en la Comunidad Económica Europea en 1986. Ello no quiere decir que no existieran otro tipo de vínculos y de acceso desde Madrid a lo que ocurría en Euratom antes de esa fecha. En su devenir histórico, Euratom se verá afectada por las crisis y ampliaciones de su organización matriz con mucha más virulencia que los otros organismos internacionales dedicados a la energía atómica. En este capítulo presentamos primero la constitución de Euratom y sus dificultades internas anteriores a la adhesión española, para después adentrarnos en las relaciones de Euratom con España.
Open Access
The Energy Mix Concentration Index (EMCI): methodological considerations for implementation
(Elsevier B.V., 2019) Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Muñoz Delgado, Beatriz; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE
The Energy Mix Concentration Index (EMCI)is a quantitative indicator of concentration of the energy mix based upon the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index. We use the EMCI to compare the evolution of the diversification (versus concentration)of energy mixes in the long-term in order to reveal the transformations of the energy structures which determine energy transitions. In this methodological paper we make explicit how to aggregate the energy sources in order to calculate the EMCI, including questions of detail such us the level of aggregation and the transformation of primary electricity to add it up to total consumption. We present alternative figures that illustrate some additional aspects of the relation of the EMCI to total consumption, consumption per capita and energy annual growth. We also show the sensitivity of the indicator to alternative specifications (with and without pre-modern energy sources)and alternative data sets, proving its robustness. Indicate how to aggregate energy carriers in the calculation of a quantitative index of concentration of the energy mix. Compare alternative specifications (with or without pre-modern energy carriers). EMCI focus on the major energy sources in the energy systems.
Open Access
Economía en transición: del tardofranquismo a la democracia
(Marcial Pons Historia, 2022) Torre Campo, Joseba de la; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Economía; Ekonomia
Este volumen acomete por primera vez un análisis sistemático de la economía española durante la Transición democrática con los métodos y exigencias de la investigación de los historiadores económicos. Se ofrece un balance de largo plazo sobre el cambio económico y social y sus fortalezas y debilidades; la naturaleza del proceso de desmantelamiento del marco institucional de la dictadura y las reformas estructurales sobre el mercado de trabajo, la fiscalidad y el sistema financiero, el impacto global de la crisis emergética y las respuestas de los empresarios y los retos de la integración europea.
Open Access
The power of persuasion: exploring the relationship between advertising and nuclear energy in Spain
(Emerald, 2024-12-09) Aramendia Muneta, María Elena; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Torre Campo, Joseba de la; Economía; Ekonomia; Gestión de Empresas; Enpresen Kudeaketa; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa, PJUPNA2023–11931
Purpose: this study aims to examine how the nuclear energy issue was used for advertising purposes at the dawn of the atomic era in Spain. Design/methodology/approach: newspapers and magazines from the atomic era were reviewed to assess the impact of nuclear energy on advertising campaigns for all kinds of unrelated products. This study interprets the message and information contained in several marketing campaigns from the detonation of the first nuclear bomb in 1945 until the inauguration of the first nuclear facility in Spain in 1968. Findings: private companies leapt at the chance to use the new technology, with its promises of a brighter future, to promote their products, including watches, Venetian blinds, anisette, chocolates, pencils and fountain pens, spa resorts, books and encyclopaedias, laundry detergents, pressure cookers, concentrate feeds and hair restorers. This study makes a major contribution to the history of marketing literature, focusing on nuclear energy as an influential agent in industry, advertising agencies and popular culture. It shows how advertising campaigns used terms such as 'nuclear', 'atomic' and 'atomic bomb' and images of mushroom clouds or atom symbols to denote modernity and allure and explores how government policies - in this case, concerning nuclear energy - can influence marketers and advertisers. Originality/value: the paper's originality stems from its analysis of Spanish advertisements to explore marketing history through the terms and imagery associated with nuclear energy and its industry. It further contributes to the understanding of how nuclear energy is represented and conceptualised for various purposes in popular culture.
Open Access
The energy and gross domestic product causality nexus in Latin America 1900-2010
(EconJournals, 2020) Leiva, Benjamín; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE
A better understanding of the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth is important for the less developed regions of the world such as Africa or Latin America, which future might be compromised by the imposition of the transition to a lower carbon economy. Studies on the energy-GDP nexus for Latin America have been few and bounded to short periods. We fill this gap by searching for causal paths between energy and GDP for 20 Latin American countries using a newly compiled dataset spanning the 20th century. Our main identification strategy is based on super exogeneity, which we complement with Granger tests, Toda and Yamamoto and enrich by controlling for structural breaks and the False Discovery Rate. The results highlight the inexistence of a homogeneous relation between energy and GDP in highly heterogeneous spatial and temporal dimensions, and thus the need to enhance our theoretical understanding of this relation. The policy implication is that designing and implementing energy policies coming from a single methodological approach and based on aggregated results should be avoided.