Open Access
Movilidad y desigualdad regional en la Unión Europea
(2002) Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Pascual Arzoz, Pedro; Rapún Gárate, Manuel; Economía; Ekonomia
El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la movilidad de la distribución de la renta por habitante a escala regional en la Unión Europea durante el período 1977-1996, con el fin de aportar elementos complementarios sobre la naturaleza de la desigualdad interregional. Para ello se calculan una serie de indicadores utilizados habitualmente en el estudio dinámico de la distribución interpersonal de la renta. Los resultados obtenidos sugieren que el nivel de movilidad intradistribucional es relativamente bajo. Asimismo, la evidencia empírica aportada muestra la existencia de una tendencia hacia la reducción de la movilidad regional a lo largo del período analizado que ha coincidido en el tiempo con el mantenimiento de la desigualdad interregional en la Unión Europea.
Open Access
Sunlight, culture and state capacity
(Wiley, 2023) Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Economía; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
This paper examines the impact of ultraviolet radiation (UV-R) on state capacity. The results indicate that the intensity of UV-R is a strong predictor of cross-country differences in state capacity. Countries with a higher degree of UV-R exposure tend on average to have weaker states. This finding remains unaffected after controlling for different variables that may be correlated with both UV-R and state capacity, including an extensive set of geographical, historical and contemporary factors. The observed link between sunlight and state capacity is not driven by potential outliers and is robust to the employment of alternative measures of state capacity, estimation methods and other sensitivity checks. Furthermore, the analysis also reveals that the individualistic-collectivist dimension of culture acts as a transmission channel connecting UV-R and state capacity. The estimates show that a lower degree of UV-R exposure leads to the adoption of individualistic values, which in turn contribute to the development of state capacity.
Open Access
Convergencia y cambio estructural en la Unión Europea
(2001) Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Economía; Ekonomia
Este trabajo estudia el papel desempeñado por el cambio estructural en el proceso de convergencia en productividad experimentado por las regiones europeas entre 1977 y 1990. Para ello se va a proceder a la estimación de ecuaciones de convergencia con datos regionales de sección cruzada considerando diferentes variables explicativas. Los resultados obtenidos sugieren la existencia de patrones de crecimiento de carácter mixto. Es decir, pueden existir mecanismos que favorezcan la convergencia en productividad de acuerdo con el modelo neoclásico. Sin embargo, paralelamente, el cambio estructural aparece como un factor explicativo importante en dicho proceso.
Open Access
Regional specializacion in the European Union
(2004) Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Gil Canaleta, Carlos; Pascual Arzoz, Pedro; Economía; Ekonomia
This paper examines productive specialization in the regions of the European Union over the period 1977 to 1999 using the information provided by various methodological instruments. The results obtained reveal a process of convergence in regional productive structures during the twenty-three years considered. This has been due to the behavior of regions with high levels of specialization at the start of the period, whose productive structures have tended to shift towards the European average over time. The analysis carried out also highlights the major role played by regional size, level of development and geographical location in explaining specialization in the European context. Finally, the empirical evidence provided suggests that changes in regional productive structures are closely linked to the evolution of the spatial distribution of per capita income in the European Union.
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
Individualism and political instability
(Elsevier, 2021-01-01) Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Economía; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE
This paper examines the relationship between the individualism-collectivism dimension of culture and political instability using a dataset covering around 100 countries. To shed light on the causal effect of culture on political instability, the identification strategy exploits the variation in historical pathogen prevalence and the information provided by the genetic distance between countries. The results reveal that individualism has a negative and statistically significant impact on the degree of political instability, which means that this cultural trait contributes to making the political environment more stable. This finding is robust to the inclusion in the analysis of a substantial number of controls that may be correlated with both individualism and political instability, including other cultural dimensions. In fact, the relationship between individualism and political instability does not depend either on the specific measures used to quantify the level of individualism and political instability within the various countries or the estimation strategy adopted. The estimates also show that part of the observed effect of individualism is due to the impact of institutional quality, which acts as a transmission channel linking this cultural trait and political instability.
Open Access
Group concentration and violence: does ethnic segregation affect domestic terrorism?
(Taylor & Francis, 2019) Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Economía; Ekonomia
This paper examines the link between ethnic segregation and domestic terrorism. The results show that ethnic segregation has a positive and significant effect on the incidence of domestic terrorism, which indicates that countries where ethnic groups are spatially concentrated face a higher risk of suffering this type of violence. This finding is not affected by the inclusion in the analysis of different covariates that may affect both ethnic segregation and domestic terrorism. The observed relationship between the degree of spatial concentration of ethnic groups and domestic terrorism is confirmed by various robustness tests. The results also suggest that the threat of secession is an important transmission channel linking ethnic segregation and domestic terrorism.
Open Access
Kin networks and quality of government: a regional analysis
(Springer, 2024-11-13) Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Economía; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
This paper examines the relationship between kin-based institutions and quality of government in the regions of Spain, France, and Italy. The results show that the rate of cousin marriage during the twentieth century is a strong predictor of the modern-day quality of government in the regions of these three countries. Regions characterized by a higher prevalence of cousin marriage tend to have on average worse governance outcomes. This finding holds after accounting for country fixed effects and different variables that may be correlated with both consanguinity and regional quality of government, including an extensive array of geographical, historical, and contemporary factors. The observed association between cousin marriage and quality of government persists when I utilize an instrumental variable approach that exploits regional variation in the degree of historical exposure to the marriage laws of the medieval Catholic Church to address potential endogeneity concerns. Furthermore, the paper also provides evidence consistent with the idea that the effect of cousin marriage on the quality of government operates through its impact on a series of cultural traits such as impersonal trust, fairness, and conformity-obedience.
Open Access
Kin-based institutions and state capacity
(Elsevier, 2025-06-01) Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Economía; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
This paper examines the relationship between kin-based institutions and state capacity. The results show that the intensity of kinship networks is a strong predictor of present-day state capacity, both across and within countries. Societies historically characterized by more intensive kinship systems tend to have weaker states today. This finding holds after accounting for various variables that may be correlated with both kinship network intensity and state capacity, including a broad range of geographic, historical, and contemporary factors. The results are also robust when employing an instrumental variable approach that exploits plausibly exogenous variation in historical exposure to the marriage laws of the medieval Catholic Church. Additionally, the analysis reveals that societies with intensive kin-based institutions typically exhibit lower political centralization. Given the essential role of political centralization in establishing state capacity, this finding helps explain the negative association between kinship intensity and state capacity.
Open Access
Does globalization promote civil war? An empirical research
(2015) Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Manotas Hidalgo, Beatriz; Economía; Ekonomia
This paper investigates the empirical relationship between globalization and in-trastate conflict in a sample of 160 countries over the period 1970-2009. To that end, we use a measure of globalization that distinguishes the social and political dimensions of integration from the economic dimension, thus allowing us to adopt a broader perspective than in most of existing studies and examine the effect of these three distinct aspects of globalization on civil violence. The results of the paper show that the degree of integration with the rest of the world contributes significantly to increasing the incidence of civil wars, in direct contrast to arguments which defend that globalization has the beneficial effect of deterring internal armed conficts. In particular, the dimension of globalization that most robustly relates with internal confict is economic integration. Our findings are not affected by the inclusion of additional explanatory variables in the analysis, or by changes in the definition of civil war. Likewise, the relationship observed between the degree of integration and civil violence does not seem to be driven by countries located in the most confictive regions in the world.