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The purpose of this paper is to examine the wage distribution in Spain, its evolution in recent years and the implications for increased wage dispersion. Accordingly, its attention focuses on the following issues: first, the paper investigates how personal, job and firm attributes affect the wages distribution and examine earnings differentials between and within groups of workers according to their individual and job characteristics throughout the conditional wage distribution; and second, the paper analyses whether the business cycle may influence the magnitude of these differentials.

Using administrative data from the Spanish Social Security and the Tax Administration National Agency, the paper estimates OLS and quantile regression (QR) models in order to assess the impact of personal, job and workplace attributes on between- and within-groups wage inequality.

Among other things, we find that, although the average wage has been increasing over time (until 2009), changes have not been uniform across the earnings distribution, making the dispersion fall during boom years but rise during downturn years. Furthermore, changes in the impacts of some characteristics (types of contract, education/qualifications, region and employer size) contributed to higher wage dispersion, while others (tenure) made the distribution more equal.

The analysis of the paper in novel in that it investigates whether wage differentials respond to the business cycle and what the source of that variation is. Moreover, it analyses wages differentials not only at the mean but also throughout the conditional earnings distribution, making it possible to assess the impact of these attributes on between- and within-groups wage inequality.

Using a Spanish administrative data set, the authors document the importance of recalls in labour market transitions. The authors focus on two issues: the interplay between the unemployment compensation system, the widespread use of fixed-term contracts and the layoff-rehire process; and the use of implicit contracts and, hence, the existence of cross-subsidisation between industries and firms within unemployment insurance. The purpose of this paper is to estimate a duration model with competing risks of exits in order to investigate the individual, job and firm attributes that influence the probabilities of leaving unemployment to return to the same employer or to find a new job. The findings indicate that recalls are very common and that, although they are widespread among the labour market, there are certain types of contract, firms and sectors which are more prone to use them.

The authors estimate a duration model with competing risks of exits in order to investigate the individual, job and firm attributes that influence the probabilities of leaving unemployment to return to the same employer or to find a new job with a different employer.

The findings indicate that recalls are very common and that, although they are widespread along the Spanish labour market, there are certain types of contract, firms and sectors which are more prone to use them.

Overall, the results suggest that there is room for the reform of the way the UCS is financed, in combination with changes in other labour market institutions.

The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it documents the importance of rehirings in labour market transitions, in general, and in compensated unemployment, in particular, highlighting the use of different types of contract (in particular, temporary ones) and using a large data set for Spain. Second, it examines the interplay between the unemployment compensation system, the use of temporary contracts and the layoff-rehire process, focusing its attention on the likely cross-subsidisation of firms and sectors with respect to unemployment benefits . This constitutes a relevant research and policy issue since it has to do with the design of the unemployment compensation system.

The purpose of this study is to identify how firms' sustainability performance is affected by external knowledge sources and absorptive capacity, accounting for the influence of being located in a science and technology park (STP).

Drawing on data from the Spanish Technological Innovation Panel, the authors estimate the determinants of sustainability performance using fixed effects multiple linear regression models with robust standard errors. The analysis covers the period 2009–2016, with a total panel of 8,874 companies and a total sample of 47,870 observations.

This study highlights the heterogeneity in on-park firms’ sustainability performance, which can be explained by the different capacities of these firms when it comes to embedding themselves in STP networks and processes and effectively absorbing the knowledge from the many knowledge sources that may be on offer in the park.

This paper contributes to the literature by examining the influence of external sources of knowledge and absorptive capacity, and the relationship between them, on sustainability performance. This study approaches sustainability performance as an aggregate measure of firms’ competitiveness and potential for long-term survival from the triple bottom line perspective. In addition, this study examines the effect that location in an STP can have on business sustainability performance and, more specifically, the mediating effect that knowledge sources and absorptive capacity can exert on this relationship.

Worldwide, Ecuador is one of the countries with the most entrepreneurial activity from micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). However, the effect of adopting the US dollar (dollarization), over which the central bank has no control, combined with being mainly an exporter of primary products, as well as strategic currency devaluation by neighboring economies, has created a difficult situation, especially for Ecuadorian women’s MSMEs. This paper aims to study the relationship between female ownership and Ecuadorian MSMEs’ financial, economic and social outcomes.

The authors compile a near-population panel of 617,804 firm-year observations representing an unbalanced panel of 112,917 MSMEs during the 2007–2016 sampling window. Panel (fixed effects) regression is used to test the hypotheses concerning the antecedents to firm financial performance, economic and social outcomes. Cox proportional hazards modeling is used to assess the impact of antecedents on firm survival.

First, firms providing more social benefits (e.g. employment and higher wages) have higher survival rates. Second, female ownership is negatively related with microenterprise financial performance, but positively associated with small-enterprise financial performance. Third, female-owned enterprises tend to provide higher wages per employee for all firm sizes. Fourth, although female-owned microenterprises are less efficient, they tend to provide more for their employees and possibly communities, through the economic stimulus they provide, in terms of the size of the financial outcomes.

This paper shows that, although this is a “man’s world,” women are learning earlier, developing faster professionally and overcoming stereotypes to focus on activities that generate both economic performance and social outcomes. Governmental policies that have contributed to MSMEs’ growth and women’s participation are identified. The findings suggest ways to improve and support both the creation of more women-owned MSMEs in emerging countries, such as Ecuador, and the survival of existing male- and female-owned MSMEs.

Achieving good sustainability performance requires balancing higher economic profits with better environmental and social performance. Knowledge plays a key role in improving corporate sustainability performance, but this knowledge is becoming increasingly complex, specific and dispersed among many scientific, technological and business actors. Science and technology parks (STPs) are infrastructures designed to host varying types of organizations that can bring together new, disruptive knowledge. Our purpose is to unveil how these spaces can be drivers of sustainability performance for companies.

We test our hypotheses on a longitudinal database of Spanish companies over the period 2009–2016 using structural equation models (SEMs).

This research confirms that a firm’s location in an STP helps improve its sustainability performance, provided that conditions are optimal in the STP. These optimal conditions are based on an abundance of knowledge spillovers available to the firm and the firm’s ability to harness them, especially those of a more disruptive nature, through absorptive capacity.

Results of this study yield implications for academia in the form of future lines of research and practical implications for policymakers and managers of both STPs and the organizations that host them.

若要取得良好的可持續發展績效，我們必須以更佳的環境和社會績效來平衡更高的經濟利潤。知識在改善企業的可持續發展績效上發揮關鍵作用; 但知識對很多科學的、技術性的和商業的參與者來說，變得越來越複雜、特殊和分散。科技園是為集合嶄新而帶有顛覆性知識的各種不同組織提供軟硬體支援而設計的基礎設施。本研究擬顯露這些設施和場地如何能為企業推動其永續發展績效。

我們以結構方程模式、去測試有關涵蓋2009年至2016年期間西班牙企業的縱向數據庫的研究假設。

研究結果確認了只要在科技園內有最優良的環境和條件，企業在園內的位置是有助改善其永續發展績效的。這些最優良環境和條件是基於企業可得到的豐富的知識外溢，以及它們可透過其吸收能力去控制知識外溢的能力，特別是那些具更強顛覆性本質的知識外溢。

研究結果為學術界就未來的研究領域提供了啟示; 研究結果亦為科技園和主辦機構的政策制定者和經理、提供了實務方面的啟示。

The purpose of this study is to analyse the gender wage gap (GWG) in Spain adopting a labour market segmentation approach. Once we obtain the different labour segments (or idiosyncratic labour markets), we are able to decompose the GWG into its observed and unobserved heterogeneity components.

We use the data from the Continuous Sample of Working Lives for the year 2021 (matched employer–employee [EE] data). Contingency tables and clustering techniques are applied to employment data to identify idiosyncratic labour markets where men and/or women of different ages tend to match/associate with different sectors of activity and occupation groups. Once this “heatmap” of labour associations is known, we can analyse its hottest areas (the idiosyncratic labour markets) from the perspective of wage discrimination by gender (Oaxaca-Blinder model).

In Spain, in general, men are paid more than women, and this is not always justified by their respective attributes. Among our results, the fact stands out that women tend to move to those idiosyncratic markets (biclusters) where the GWG (in favour of men) is smaller.

It has not been possible to obtain remuneration data by job-placement, but an annual EE relationship is used. Future research should attempt to analyse the GWG across the wage distribution in the different idiosyncratic markets.

Our combination of methodologies can be adapted to other economies and variables and provides detailed information on the labour-matching process and gender wage discrimination in segmented labour markets.

Our contribution is very important for labour market policies, trying to reduce unfair inequalities.

The study of the GWG from a novel labour segmentation perspective can be interesting for other researchers, institutions and policy makers.

Mesoscale air quality models are an important tool to forecast and analyse the air quality in regional and urban areas. In recent years an increased interest has been shown by decision makers in these types of software tools. The complexity of such a model has grown exponentially with the increase of computer power. Nowadays, medium workstations can run operational versions of these modelling systems successfully. Presents a complex mesoscale air quality model which has been installed in the Environmental Office of the Madrid community (Spain) in order to forecast accurately the ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide air concentrations in a 3D domain centred on Madrid city. Describes the challenging scientific matters to be solved in order to develop an operational version of the atmospheric mesoscale numerical pollution model for urban and regional areas (ANA). Some encouraging results have been achieved in the attempts to improve the accuracy of the predictions made by the version already installed.

The purpose of this paper is to use the dynamic capabilities framework to explain the effect of board networks, as a source of intellectual capital, on firm performance. The authors propose that the influence of board interlocks depends on their ability to contribute to strategic decision making. As a result, their effect is subject to the business context in which they occur and the different role of the interconnected directors involved.

The authors use social network analysis to make board connections and to calculate centrality measures. The authors also identify busy boards to analyze whether their effect differs from centrality. The authors estimate the theoretical model using the Generalized Method of Moments in order to take advantage of the panel database.

For a sample of Spanish firms from 1999 to 2015, the results show there is no direct significant effect of directors’ networks on firm performance. However, the authors find a positive and significant influence of intra-industry board connections, particularly when they are established among outsiders.

The Spanish context of the study can limit the generalization of the papers’ results.

The results can be useful both for practitioners – since they can serve as a guide for companies to reformulate their boards in search of the optimal structure-, and when implementing good governance codes – establishing limits for director interlocking.

This study helps to offer a better understanding of how directors’ networks can add value to the firm depending on the kind of resources they provide (context) and the role of the director who is connected.

Agricultural production in Honduras was devastated by the impact of hurricanes Eta and Iota in November 2020, placing people depending on agriculture in a vulnerable and food insecure situation. In addition to the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic downturn in the country, these extreme events are forcing more people to leave and head to North America in migrant caravans. Over the last decades, Honduras has been impacted by severe climate change events, including droughts and extreme tropical storms. According to the Global Climate Risk Index (CRI), developed by Germanwatch (Eckstein et al., 2019), Honduras was the second most affected country by climate change over a period of 20 years, from 1998 to 2017. Extreme rainfall and tropical storms, droughts, variation in rainfall patterns, and soil loss make agriculture more difficult, thus placing low-income rural families at the edge of hunger and food insecurity. In terms of migration policy, much focus has been given to economic instability, weak governance, violence and crime as push factors for migration, but the effect of food insecurity and climate change impact is often overlooked in this narrative. Agricultural areas in Honduras, traditionally the backbone of food production, have been identified as climate out-migration hotspots. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the most relevant data to understand the interactions between climate change, food insecurity and the current migration crisis in Honduras.

The efficiency of an educational program on entrepreneurial competence, Training the Potential Entrepreneur. Generation of an Educational Model for Entrepreneurial Identify (PEIEO) is evaluated in this study.

Pre and post intervention tests were administered to an Experimental Group (EG) and a Control Group (CG). Moreover, four hypotheses are proposed (H1, H2, H3, H4) and tested on a sample of 1036 Spanish students. The following instruments were applied: Attitude Towards Entrepreneurship-Spanish adaption; Measurement Scale of Personal Initiative in Educational Settings and Scale of General Self-Efficacy. ANCOVA and the Student's t-test were applied to the results.

The results show that training in entrepreneurial identity increases the entrepreneurial potential of young people (H1). A notable increase in proactivity and being a self-starter was observed with regard to personal initiative within the EG, and for self-efficacy (H3) both of which were predictors of entrepreneurial identity. Gender was likewise a predictor (H4).

Young people attending the PElEO training program in entrepreneurial potential increased their levels of entrepreneurial identity, thereby confirming the effectiveness of the program.

The program (PEIEO) is based on the development of entrepreneurial potential, a dimension that generates entrepreneurial identity (creativity, leadership, achievement and personal control).