Person: Cárdenas Del Rey, Luis
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First Name
Luis
Last Name
Cárdenas Del Rey
Affiliation
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Faculty / Institute
Ciencias Políticas y Sociología
Department
Economía Aplicada, Pública y Política
Area
Fundamentos del Análisis Económico
Identifiers
7 results
Search Results
Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
Item Challenging the working time reduction and wages trade-off: a simulation for the Spanish economy(Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2021) Cárdenas Del Rey, Luis; Villanueva Cortés, PalomaThis paper analyzes the effect of working time reduction (WTR) on the Spanish economy. Using microdata from the Economically Active Population Survey (EAPS) and the Wage Structure Survey (WSS), we estimate the changes in employment, worked hours, wages and salaries, and the labour share driven by a 5-hour reduction of the ordinary work week in full-time contracts (from 40 hours to 35 hours), without a wage reduction. According to our results, this WTR would mean the liberation of private sector hours that are equivalent to 1.2 million full-time jobs. To calculate job creation, we consider the occupations and technical conditions of production (based on the European Working Conditions Survey). Consequently, had the WTR taken place in 2017, it would have created 560 thousand jobs, thus causing the unemployment rate to fall by 2.6 p.p. Moreover, women are found to be the group most affected by this measure. As for the effect on wages, these would have increased by 3.7%, implying a labour share increase of 2.1 p.p. Finally, we study the macroeconomic effects, through an extended version of the single-equations Bhaduri–Marglin model using quarterly data from 1995Q1 until 2017Q4. Our results show that a WTR of 5 hours leads to an increase of 1.4% in GDP.Item Potential output and cyclically adjusted balance: an application of the updated Okun method to Spain (1987-2022)(Review of Political Economy, 2024) Villanueva Cortés, Paloma; Cárdenas Del Rey, Luis; Ruiz Gómez, Juan RafaelThe estimation of potential output is at the heart of the ongoing debate on the reformulation of fiscal rules in the European Union as it is an essential variable for their application. Spain constitutes a striking case, with a small and even positive output gap along with one of the highest unemployment rates in the European Union. To resolve this contradiction, in this article we estimate the potential output of the Spanish economy for the period 1987Q2–2022Q4 by means of the Updated Okun Method. Our results indicate that both the output gap and the cyclically adjusted balance are much higher than what European institutions estimate. Consequently, Spain has much more fiscal space to implement expansionary fiscal policies.Item The role of internal devaluation in correcting external deficits: The case of Spain(Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 2020) Villanueva Cortés, Paloma; Cárdenas Del Rey, Luis; Uxó González, Jorge; Álvarez Peralta, Ignacio; ElsevierThis paper carries out an ex-post evaluation of the internal devaluation policy in correcting external deficits. We examine to what extent and through which mechanisms the internal devaluation strategy implemented after 2010 is responsible for the readjustment in net exports in the case of Spain. Our analysis incorporates the effects linked to changes in external competitiveness and domestic prices and those associated with changes in income distribution. The main way in which internal devaluation contributed to external readjustment was through a decrease in domestic demand and imports rather than through enhanced external competitiveness. These demand effects derived from the distributive impact of changes in unit labor costs, which reduced the Spanish wage share during this period. According to our estimates, internal devaluation explains 33% of total external sector readjustment over the 2010-2018 period, 98% of which is driven by the demand effect, with the remaining 2% resulting from price effects.Item Peripheral Europe beyond the Troika: assessing the ‘success’ of structural reforms in driving the Spanish recovery(Review of Keynesian Economics, 2020) Cárdenas Del Rey, Luis; Villanueva Cortés, Paloma; Álvarez Peralta, Ignacio; Uxó González, JorgeSince 2014 the Spanish economy has recovered positive GDP growth, and the country has been growing well above the eurozone average. This recovery has sparked an academic and political debate concerning the role that structural reforms, prescribed by the ‘Troika,’ have played in peripheral Europe. For certain scholars and institutions, these structural reforms have allowed the market, through greater wage flexibility, to make the necessary adjustments to restore economic growth, resulting in a ‘healthy’ economic recovery. But to what extent is this mainstream narrative solidly backed up by the empirical evidence? Can Spain be held up as an international example of the ‘success’ of these reforms? The aim of this paper is to shed light on this debate. We consider that labor market reforms and wage devaluation policy are not the drivers of economic recovery. Instead, we offer an alternative explanation for recovery based on the theory of demand-led growth.Item Flexibilization at the Core to Reduce Labour Market Dualism: Evidence from the Spanish Case(British Journal of Industrial Relations, 2020) Cárdenas Del Rey, Luis; Villanueva Cortés, PalomaInstitutionalist explanations of the high non-standard employment rate in the Spanish labour market have pointed to the relevance of flexibilization at the margin, that is, the deregulation of non-standard jobs. Using Spanish social security micro data, we find evidence that the liberalization reforms of 2010 and 2012 had flexibilization at their core, that is, greater instability due to open-ended and full-time contracts (erosion of employment protection) and a rise in turnover among periphery workers, increasing the segregation gap. We conclude that there is a high level of deregulation and simultaneous dualization due to the combination of flexibilization at the margin (until 2008) and the core (2010–2012).Item Labour policy in the face of the COVID-19 socio-economic crisis in Spain: institutional change and social pacts(Employee Relations, 2023) Cárdenas Del Rey, Luis; Villanueva Cortés, PalomaThis study aims to analyse the institutional changes in the Spanish labour market in the light of the measures introduced to support workers during the COVID-19 crisis. Applying the theoretical framework the authors’ hypothesis is that the labour policy response to the crisis provoked by COVID-19 in Spain has ranged from strategy of preservation of the social democratic coalition to the anti-bourgeois bloc coalition with a greater presence of social pacts and the support of the social partners.Item Unemployment in Spain: The failure of wage devaluation(The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 2021) Villanueva Cortés, Paloma; Cárdenas Del Rey, LuisThis article analyses from a Keynesian approach the effect of wage devaluation on the Spanish labour market during the Great Recession post-2008. It challenges the proflexibility literature, which attributes to labour relations reforms the prevention of larger job destruction in the recession and a larger reduction in unemployment during the subsequent expansion. Instead, we examine the role of wage devaluation in the operation of Okun’s law and gross domestic product, using an extended version of the Bhaduri–Marglin model. We find that wage devaluation has not significantly modified Okun’s law and that through its impact on income distribution, the unemployment rate rose by 1.9 percentage points. We therefore provide evidence for the negative effect of wage devaluation on gross domestic product and the positive effect on the unemployment rate.