Open Access
Determinants of sport performance in European football: what can we learn from the data?
(Elsevier, 2018) Zambom Ferraresi, Fabíola; Ríos Ibáñez, Vicente; Lera López, Fernando; Economía; Ekonomia
Nowadays game-related statistics in the sports industry are demanded by coaches, players, managers, journalists, supporters, fans, video games developers, betting markets and academics. However, the employment of game related statistics to analyse performance in football (soccer) has inherent problems given it is a multifaceted and complex phenomenon. This study analyses the importance of a large number of possible determinants of sport performance in the 'Big Five' European football leagues during the period 2012/13-2014/15. To this end, Bayesian model averaging techniques and relative importance metrics are employed. The results obtained point to the existence of a set of robust determinants in sport performance. This set of drivers comprises (i) assists, (ii) shots conceded, (iii) saves made by the goalkeeper, (iv) the number of precise passes with respect to the total number of passes, and (v) shots on target. The results of the study support the idea that offensive actions are more relevant than defensive ones. In addition, we find the existence of some performance indicators that have usually been ignored by previous analyses, such as saves made by the goalkeeper and assists. These findings could help the decision-making process of the coaching, scouting and managerial units of football clubs. Finally, the modelling techniques employed in this context can be generalized to gain knowledge in other fields of knowledge to extract factors affecting complex problems from large data sets. This could be particularly interesting when previous research has not yet obtained a well-defined and robust set of factors explaining these complex problems.
Open Access
Essays in spatial econometrics
(2016) Ríos Ibáñez, Vicente; Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Pascual Arzoz, Pedro; Economía; Ekonomia
This thesis is an attempt to obtain further insight into the role of spatial and dynamic linkages in the field of Economics given the crucial need for a better understanding of the fundamental processes behind the spatial and temporal correlation patterns observable in the economic data. To date, most theoretical economic models and econometric studies have treated units of analysis as isolated entities, ignoring the spatial characteristics of the data and the potential role of space in modulating the economic evolution of countries, regions, municipalities, etc. In this regard, the essence of spatial economic analysis is that space matters. This implies that what happens in one economic unit of analysis is linked to what happens in neighboring economic units. In a spatial economic modeling framework, the spatial dimension and geographical arrangement of interacting economic agents are key drivers of economic processes and their final outcomes. The recognition of the wide range of interconnections between the interacting agents in economics requires to accommodate such interdependence in the modeling process and in order to verify models of social and spatial interaction, these spatial effects need to be explicitly accounted for. Failure to take into account spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity in econometric models leads to major estimation problems because the coefficient estimates will be biased, inconsistent and/or inefficient. A distinct and innovative feature of this research is the use of static and dynamic spatial panel data estimation techniques for the empirical testing and validation of the theoretical models developed in the different chapters. This methodological approach is particularly appropriate for the analysis of economic phenomena from an integrated space-time perspective because it allows to model spillover, feedback and diffusion effects among the study units. Frequentist Spatial Econometrics modeling tools are complemented with Bayesian Spatial Econometrics and Relative Importance metrics in order to gain knowledge about the type of connectivity structures, the underlying spatial processes behind the observable data and to carry out inference in the relevance of the different factors explaining disparities among spatial units in time. The structure of this thesis consists of four self-contained chapters. Chapter 1 analyzes the volatility-regional growth nexus in a sample of European regions. To that end, a model of stochastic neoclassical growth with spatial interdependence is developed. In this framework, the economic growth rate of a particular region is affected not only by its own degree of volatility but also by the output fluctuations experienced by the remaining regions. In order to investigate the empirical validity of this result, the link between volatility and economic growth is examined in a sample of 272 European regions over the period 1991-2011 using a variety of static spatial pane specifications including spatial fixed effects. The results suggest the existence of a robust negative link between volatility and growth. Chapter 2 investigates regional development dynamics in a sample of 254 NUTS 2 European Union regions over the period 2000–2010. To that end, a new version of the Regional Lisbon Index (RLI) containing changes with respect the index developed by Dijkstra is proposed. The RLI employment, education and R&D indicators. Targets for these indicators are related to an action and economic development plan for the EU regions and have been incorporated into European Regional Policy programming. The analysis of regional development is based on the estimation of the spatial Durbin model. Different specifications of the spatial weights matrix describing the spatial arrangement are compared by means of Spatial Bayesian Econometrics techniques. The salient finding of this chapter is that the main drivers of the RLI growth rate are technological capital, infrastructures and employment growth. Chapter 3 analyzes unemployment differentials in 241 European regions during the period 2000-2011. To that end, a theoretical model with substantive spatial interactions among regions is developed. The solution implies a Dynamic Spatial Durbin Model specification including regional and institutional level factors as explanatory variables. In conjunction with dynamic-spatial panel estimates, relative importance metrics are used to quantify the effect of regional disequilibrium, equilibrium and national level factors. Relative importance analysis suggests that during the pre-crisis period unemployment disparities were mainly driven by regional level equilibrium factors. Nevertheless, labor market institutions are of major importance to explain increasing disparities during 2009-2011. Chapter 4 looks into the nature of fiscal policy interactions in local fiscal policy in Spain. This study extends traditional spatial spillover models of government spending by including dynamic effects in order to test the relevance of the incremental budget hypothesis stemming from political science research. The theoretical model developed in this study points out to an empirical specification including simultaneous and lagged endogenous interactions among the sample of municipalities, as well as exogenous interaction effects. To that end, a Dynamic Spatial Durbin panel data model is used to quantify the relevance of spatial spillovers and diffusion effects over time. Using annual data for a sample of 1230 Spanish municipalities during 2000 to 2012, it is observed that: there are significant positive simultaneous spatial spillovers in different government expenditure categories and that the incremental hypothesis stemming from political science has a greater explanatory power than that of spatial spillovers.
Open Access
Quality of government and regional resilience in the European Union. Evidence from the Great Recession
(Wiley, 2019) Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Ríos Ibáñez, Vicente; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Economía
This paper examines the relationship between quality of government and regional resilience in the European Union during the Great Recession. The results show that the quality of government is an important factor when shaping the regional reaction to the crisis. Our estimates reveal that higher quality of government is associated with greater regional resilience over the Great Recession. This is partly due to the role played in this context by spatial spillovers induced by the quality of government in neighbouring regions. The observed link between governance and regional resilience is robust to the inclusion in the analysis of different explanatory variables that may affect both government quality and regional resilience. Likewise, our findings do not depend on the specific dimension of governance considered, the estimation method or the econometric specification employed to capture the nature of spatial spillovers.
Open Access
Quality of government in European regions: do spatial spillovers matter?
(Taylor & Francis, 2019-10-21) Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Ríos Ibáñez, Vicente; Economía; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE
This paper examines the role played by spatial spillovers in shaping the regional distribution of quality of government across the European Union. To do so, it constructs a hybrid spatial weights matrix combining geographical, technological and social distances between the European regions. The results reveal that the quality of government in neighbouring regions has a positive and statistically significant effect on one region¿s quality of government, which highlights the relevance of spatial effects in this context. This finding is robust to the inclusion in the analysis of different variables that may affect regional governance. Likewise, the observed effect of neighbouring regions does not depend on the specific dimension of governance considered, the spatial weights matrix used to describe the spatial linkages between the European regions, or the econometric specification employed to capture the nature of spatial spillovers. The results also show that policy innovations related to governance spread from regions with high and intermediate levels of quality of government.

Ríos Ibáñez, Vicente

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