Exporting firms are typically the more productive firms in an economy. Based on this observation, policy makers typically enact policies to stimulate exportation by domestic firms. In this chapter, we argue that firms make productivity enhancing investments and as a result the more productive...

In this paper, we explore the relationship between innovation activity, productivity, and exports, using a panel of Spanish manufacturing firms for 1990-1998. Our results - based on non-parametric tests - suggest that firm innovation status is critical in explaining the positive...

While innovation is argued to create value, private incentives of fi rms to innovate are driven by what part of the value created rms can appropriate. In this paper we explore the relation between innovation and the markups a fi rm is able to extract after innovating. We estimate fi rm-speci c...

We study the effect of the business cycle on the health of newborn babies using 30 years of birth certificate data for Spain. Exploiting regional variation over time, we find that babies are born healthier when the local unemployment rate is high. Although fertility is lower during recessions,...

I document extremely son-biased sex ratios at birth among Asian-born parents in Spain. Using data on the universe of registered births in Spain during 2007- 2012, I show that there are 117 boys per 100 girls born to Indian parents, compared with a national average of 107 boys per 100 girls. The...