Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

    Even though the considerable loss of welfare caused by the recent economic crisis occurred in Spain, it does not seem to have affected heavily, at least in the short term, in terms of mortality and self-perceived health of the general population. However, there has been a negative impact on mental health, especially among men. Likewise, there are several vulnerable population groups whose health has worsened during this period, intensifying social inequalities in health. Given such disturbing evolution observed in the social indicators of income inequality and poverty rates as well as risk of social exclusion, caution is needed when interpreting the results obtained in the  short term and attention should be paid on the population’s health evolution in the medium and long term. At the same time, it is necessary to draw the appropriate conclusions so that the policies and interventions could be implemented in future crises.    

The so-called collaborative economy has experienced an intensive process of expansion during the last decades, mainly regarding certain tourism and transport services. Though this phenomenon is not new, since it played an important role in the economies prior to industrial revolution, its renaissance in recent years is associated with technological factors and the accumulation of domestic capital in the form of durable goods. Technological progress and the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) have removed market barriers and information constraints, allowing households to devote home production inputs to the production of good and services that are provided to other consumers. In this paper we propose a theoretical framework within which to study the sector of the collaborative economy, together with the market production and household production sectors. These three sectors have distinct characteristics in terms of the productive factors that are used in each of them, with collaborative economy being defined as an intermediate sector between traditional market production and domestic production. On the basis of this proposal, we finally provide a review of a number of issues that arise in the regulation of collaborative economy, and some considerations applicable to tourism and transport services within this framework.  

After the international economic crisis of 2007, the economic literature focusses to a greater extent on corruption as a phenomenon that could distort the proper functioning of the economic system. In this sense, there have been works that investigate the relationship between the degree of corruption of countries and the volume of their international trade, an area that had been little explored so far. Although the uncertainty of acting in a corrupt environment can affect international business, some practices could also act as a mechanism of deregulation facilitating trade flows. In fact, the studies carried out are not entirely conclusive in relation to the sign of the impact of corruption on trade. This paper presents the current state of the issue describing the methodology and the data sets used as well as the results of the most influential studies.  

The disruptions associated with the new collaborative economy and the digital platforms are of great importance, and taking advantage of their benefits constitutes an unprecedented challenge for public administrations. Under this scenario, governments should proceed to the establishment of a fair regulation for all operators in the sector applying the Smart Regulation principles to promote equality in the same playing field. In this new economic and social revolution, tax and labor policies and the public-private collaboration agreements take on special relevance. In addition, sandbox fields promoted by regulators as an experimental space must allow flexibility or non-compliance with specific legislative frameworks in order to test the public impact of business models with an innovative component.  

 Public health has a priority role in improving the health of the population, through the different aspects presented in this article, that go beyond the performance of health care services. Firstly, global health, accepting that health problems are global and require actions at a global level, together with the need to incorporate operational research into decision-making. Secondly, the social determinants and how they affect the health-disease binomial. Also, the development and implementation of the strategy Health in All Policies, and the reduction of the increasing medicalization of society.    

This article discusses the challenges for public policy of the rise of ride-sourcing applications around the world during the last decade. Among the topics discussed are the effects of this technological innovation on traffic safety, tax issues and the funding of mass transit systems, labor standards, quality of service, information privacy, as well as the social and distributive consequences of the rise of these applications. The article reviews the academic literature available on these issues, highlighting available empirical evidence, and places particular emphasis on the impact of these applications on urban congestion, an issue that is recently receiving more attention from researchers. In the conclusions, a regulatory proposal is presented that allows to reap the benefits of these applications while avoiding or minimizing their negative impacts.

  Spain lacks a sustained and strategic political action to improve the health of the population beyond health services. Good governance is a prerequisite for changing the health policy and the design of the National Health System in the right direction. In this article five areas related to good governance are selected: prioritization, comprehensive health policy, leadership, national health agency, and cultural and intellectual environment. After analysing the available proposals, the actions that according to the current context could be implemented in order to advance the agenda of good governance are examined.    

The platform economy has emerged with great force in a wide diversity of productive sectors (mobility, tourism, finance, etc.). These platforms are proving to be more efficient from a management point of view, offer more opportunities to exchange value among citizens and reduce the ecological footprint in some cases. The complete analysis should incorporate the negative externalities of the platforms and the challenges related to their regulation (licenses, labor, taxes, etc.). We present several tools and reflections that facilitate this more complete analysis when parameterizing a digital platform to measure its level of social responsibility.  

Platforms have existed in the economy for a long time, at least since human beings began trading in cities thousands of years ago. More recently, technological progress, globalization and the economics of attention have further increased their presence and relevance in our society, with the development of digital platforms such as eBay, Amazon, Twitter, Google or Uber. Platforms lower transactions costs and connect different groups of users with interrelated demands. Currently, they are having a crucial and disruptive impact across sectors in the economy and are changing our society forever. The aim of this article is to analyze the main economic properties of platforms, explore the main factors which are relevant to platform competition and assess someof the implications of platform markets for competition policy

The promotion of employability and the acquisition of competences have become one of the priorities of higher education for the countries that belong to the European Higher Education Area. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the impact of generic competences and other sociodemographic, academic and work-related variables on the probability of having a job for university graduates in Spain. This analysis uses data from the 2015 survey by the Observatory for University Employability and Employment. The results reveal that the most relevant competences are the systemic ones, and that the rest of variables, such as sex or the cycle of studies, condition notably that probability. Thus, the findings of this article can contribute to improve the adaptation of academic programs in universities and to enact more effective public policies to facilitate the access to employment.