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.
Open Access
Tracking water for human activities: from the ivory tower to the ground
(Elsevier, 2021) Martínez Aldaya, Maite; Sesma Martín, Diego; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Institute on Innovation and Sustainable Development in Food Chain - ISFOOD; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
Water policy requires well established metrics for success. Precise metrics allow for quantifying progress and adjusting processes to produce the desired outcomes. We analyze the different schools of thought, nomenclatures and indicators developed for tracking water for human activities. After comparing a variety of terms related to water accounting used to serve the different purposes (environmental vs. ecological economics), we found that the different approaches to water tracking utilize identical terms to refer to distinctive concepts. The characterization of widely used terms such as 'water use' varies across different branches of literature. Different approaches to water measurement and its efficiency have an impact on water allocation. Our paper points out that the current definitions and methods for tracking water for human activities may offer contradictory advice over whether progress is being made towards desirable objectives, which may differ across stakeholders. This review aims at helping the transfer of academic results to empirical decision-making by discerning the differences among the variety of indicators available in the literature and their empirical implications. The ambiguity in the water terminology should be clarified before policy decisions can be useful in practice for guiding actions.
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
Learning by doing: the first Spanish nuclear power plant
(Cambridge University Press, 2018) Torre Campo, Joseba de la; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Economía; Ekonomia
In the nuclear sector, turnkey projects can be considered an investment in obtaining information through “learning by doing” to capture rents from the next generation of reactors. As the first U.S. turnkey export project, the first Spanish nuclear power plant served that purpose and paved the way to the subsequent growth of the nuclear sector, for both Spanish and U.S. firms. Making use of archival material, we analyse the networks created by the government, experts, and business leaders, which sought to obtain, accumulate, and learn from the scarce and conflicting information about atomic technology that was available at the time. We also discern how firms on both sides of the Atlantic acquired and perfected the specific capabilities required to build a commercial nuclear reactor.
Open Access
Agua dulce para refrigeración: una visión a largo plazo de la huella hídrica de las centrales nucleares en España
(2016) Sesma Martín, Diego; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Economía
Objectives: our research pioneers a first approximation to the water footprint of the Spanish nuclear power plants operating with freshwater from 1969 to the present. Our aim is to calculate the consumptive use of water (i.e. the amount of water evaporated, transpired, or incorporated in energy production) for Spanish nuclear power plants, and the amounts of water withdrawals required for running nuclear power plants. To sum up, what is the water impact of our nuclear power plants? Will water limit our energy future? Should water be considered when planning the electricity mix in the future? These are some of the questions to solve.
Open Access
Nuclear engineering and technology transfer: the Spanish strategies to deal with US, French and German nuclear manufacturers, 1955–1985
(Routledge, 2020) Torre Campo, Joseba de la; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Sánchez Sánchez, Esther M.; Sanz Lafuente, María Gloria; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Economía
We analysed the process of construction and connection to the electrical grid of four Spanish nuclear power plants with different financial and technological foreign partners: those of Zorita (PWR by Westinghouse), Garoña (BWR by General Electric) and Vandellós I (GCR by EDF) (belonging to the first generation of atomic plants and producing electricity from 1969–72) and that of Trillo I (PWR by KWU, connected in 1988). These four examples allow us to observe how the learning curve of nuclear engineering and the acquisition of skills by Spanish companies evolved. Progressively the domestic industry achieved higher levels of participation, fostered by the Ministry of Industry and Energy. When the atomic plants under construction were paralysed by the nuclear moratorium of 1984, and several other projects were abandoned by the utilities along the way, Spain had developed an industrial sector around the fabrication of service components and engineering for nuclear power plants to compete internationally.
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
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
Freshwater for cooling needs: a long-run approach to the nuclear water footprint in Spain
(Elsevier, 2017) Sesma Martín, Diego; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Economía
From the invention of the steam engine to the present, water has represented a significant input to the energy system, although this has been mostly ignored in the literature. In Spain, the most arid country in Europe, studies about water footprint typically just consider domestic, agricultural and industrial water uses, but water requirements for the electricity sector are omitted despite our dependence on thermal power. It has been demonstrated that for each available cooling technology, nuclear needs and consumption of water tend to be larger per MWh generated. We calculate a first approximation to the Spanish nuclear water footprint from 1969 to 2015. Our results show that while water consumed by Spanish nuclear power plants are around 3 m3 per capita/year, water withdrawals per capita/year are around 70 m3. Moreover, our analysis allows extracting conclusions focusing on a River Basins approach. What is the water impact of our nuclear power plants? Will water limit our energy future? These are some of the issues at stake.
Open Access
Long-term diversification paths and energy transitions in Europe
(Elsevier B.V., 2019) Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Muñoz Delgado, Beatriz; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE
The authors propose a synthetic indicator that allows one to compare and contrast the evolution of the composition of the primary energy baskets of eight European countries over the last two centuries, and quantitatively analyze the degree of concentration (versus diversity) of their energy mixes throughout the period. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: section 2 explains the data sources and the methodology used based on concentration measures. The subsequent section focuses on the Energy Mix Concentration Index analysis and the results obtained. The article ends with a few concluding remarks.