Una gran parte de las empresas de todo el mundo, y especialmente las PYMES occidentales, están perdiendo mucho dinero, y como consecuencia de ello gran parte de su competitividad potencial, debido a que los costes totales de calidad en que incurren, son inaceptablemente elevados. En la mayoría de los casos no existe modelo coherente alguno para gestionar dichos costes, y en otros, los modelos aplicados se utilizan de forma parcial, rutinaria y con escaso convencimiento. El resultado de ello, como cabría esperar, es obviamente decepcionante. Evidentemente hay también empresas, generalmente las de gran tamaño (líderes del mercado y multinacionales), conocedoras de la gran importancia que para la disminución de sus costes supone disponer de un sistema adecuado de gestión de los costes de calidad. Invierten sistemáticamente en ello, obteniendo resultados satisfactorios, tanto en sus cuentas de resultados como en el nivel de motivación de sus empleados. Éstos, conscientes del interés de la Dirección por mejorar la calidad de sus productos y servicios, se sienten de alguna manera partícipes de ese proyecto, entendiendo que, en definitiva, el éxito de la empresa es también el suyo propio. Hemos analizado las causas de esta situación, utilizando las experiencias plasmadas en numerosos estudios llevados a cabo por expertos internacionales. Una vez localizados, acotados y definidos los aspectos débiles de los procedimientos aplicados en la actualidad, hemos diseñado un par de nuevos modelos de gestión de los costes totales de calidad, que tienen la virtud de haber eliminado aquellas etapas que, en la práctica, se han mostrado ineficaces, e incorporando otras, que han resultado ser muy útiles en diversos campos de la gestión de la calidad. El primero de los modelos, el más simple, puede ser utilizado para gestionar presupuestos de costes de calidad sencillos, mientras que el segundo contempla la posibilidad de lograr una mayor exactitud en las cifras de las previsiones, al tiempo que introduce alguna situación de incertidumbre.

Cristóbal Cebolla, A. R.; Gil-Lafuente, A. M. (RFA-IREA); Merigó-Lindahl, J. M. (RFA-IREA)

XREAP2014-03.pdf

The stop-loss reinsurance is one of the most important reinsurance contracts in the insurance market. From the insurer point of view, it presents an interesting property: it is optimal if the criterion of minimizing the variance of the cost of the insurer is used. The aim of the paper is to contribute to the analysis of the stop-loss contract in one period from the point of view of the insurer and the reinsurer. Firstly, the influence of the parameters of the reinsurance contract on the correlation coefficient between the cost of the insurer and the cost of the reinsurer is studied. Secondly, the optimal stop-loss contract is obtained if the criterion used is the maximization of the joint survival probability of the insurer and the reinsurer in one period.

Castañer, A. (CREB); Claramunt, M.M. (CREB)

XREAP2014-04.pdf

This paper analyses the effect of job accessibility by public and private transport on labour market outcomes in the metropolitan area of Barcelona. Beyond employment, we consider the effect of job accessibility on job-education mismatch, which represents a relevant aspect of job quality. We adopt a recursive system of equations that models car availability, employment and mismatch. Public transport accessibility appears as an exogenous variable in the three equations. Even though it may reflect endogenous residential sorting, falsification proofs suggest that the estimated effect of public transport accessibility is not entirely driven by the endogenous nature of residential decisions.

Di Paolo, A. (AQR-IREA); Matas, A. (GEAP); Raymond, J.Ll. (GEAP)

XREAP2014-05.pdf

Drawing on a very rich data set from a recent cohort of PhD graduates, we examine the correlates and consequences of qualification and skills mismatch. We show that job characteristics such as the economic sector and the main activity at work play a fundamental direct role in explaining the probability of being well matched. However, the effect of academic attributes seems to be mainly indirect, since it disappears once we control for the full set of work characteristics. We detected a significant earnings penalty for those who are both overqualified and overskilled and also showed that being mismatched reduces job satisfaction, especially for those whose skills are underutilized. Overall, the problem of mismatch among PhD graduates is closely related to demand-side constraints of the labor market. Increasing the supply of adequate jobs and broadening the skills PhD students acquire during training should be explored as possible responses.

Di Paolo, A. (AQR-IREA); Mañé, F.

XREAP2014-06.pdf

Using a database of 2,263 responses to R&D public calls in Catalonia, during the period 2007–2010, this paper proceeds to analyse the potential interaction of the territorial and policy dimensions with the propensity to apply for, and be awarded, a public R&D subsidy. Controlling for characteristics at the firm and project level, we estimate models using a twostep procedure. In the first step, our results suggest that large firms which export and which belong to high-tech manufactures are more likely to participate in a public R&D call. Furthermore, both urban location and past experience of such calls have a positive effect. Our territorial proxy of information spillovers shows a positive sign, but this is only significant at intra-industry level. Membership of one of the sectors prioritized by the Catalan government, perhaps surprisingly, does not have a significant impact. In the second step, our results show that cooperative projects, SMEs or old firms shows a positive effect on the probability of obtaining a public subsidy. Finally, the cluster policy does not show a clear relationship with the public R&D call, suggesting that cluster policies and R&D subsidies follow different goals. Our results are in line with previous results in the literature, but they highlight the unequal territorial distribution of the firms which apply and the fact that policymakers should interlink the decision criteria for their public call with other policies.

Segarra, A. (GRIT); Teruel, M. (GRIT); Bovè, M.A. (GRIT)

XREAP2014-07.pdf

The article examines public-private sector wage differentials in Spain using microdata from the Structure of Earnings Survey (Encuesta de Estructura Salarial). When applying various decomposition techniques, we find that it is important to distinguish by gender and type of contract. Our results also highlight the presence of a positive wage premium for public sector workers that can be partially explained by their better endowment of characteristics, in particular by the characteristics of the establishment where they work. The wage premium is greater for female and fixed-term employees and falls across the wage distribution, being negative for more highly skilled workers.

Ramos, R. (AQR-IREA); Sanromá, E. (IEB); Simón, H.

XREAP2014-08.pdf

Two speed management policies were implemented in the metropolitan area of Barcelona aimed at reducing air pollution concentration levels. In 2008, the maximum speed limit was reduced to 80 km/h and, in 2009, a variable speed system was introduced on some metropolitan motorways. This paper evaluates whether such policies have been successful in promoting cleaner air, not only in terms of mean pollutant levels but also during high and low pollution episodes. We use a quantile regression approach for fixed effect panel data. We find that the variable speed system improves air quality with regard to the two pollutants considered here, being most effective when nitrogen oxide levels are not too low and when particulate matter concentrations are below extremely high levels. However, reducing the maximum speed limit from 120/100 km/h to 80 km/h has no effect – or even a slightly increasing effect –on the two pollutants, depending on the pollution scenario.

Bel, G. (GiM-IREA); Bolance, C. (RFA-IREA); Guillén, M. (RFA-IREA); Rosell, J. (GiM-IREA)

XREAP2014-09.pdf

This paper performs an empirical Decomposition of International Inequality in Ecological Footprint in order to quantify to what extent explanatory variables such as a country’s affluence, economic structure, demographic characteristics, climate and technology contributed to international differences in terms of natural resource consumption during the period 1993-2007. We use a Regression-Based Inequality Decomposition approach. As a result, the methodology extends qualitatively the results obtained in standard environmental impact regressions as it comprehends further social dimensions of the Sustainable Development concept, i.e. equity within generations. The results obtained point to prioritizing policies that take into account both future and present generations.

Teixidó-Figueras, J. (GRIT); Duró, J. (GRIT)

XREAP2013-03.pdf

 Black-box optimization problems (BBOP) are de ned as those optimization problems in which the objective function does not have an algebraic expression, but it is the output of a system (usually a computer program). This paper is focussed on BBOPs that arise in the eld of insurance, and more speci cally in reinsurance problems. In this area, the complexity of the models and assumptions considered to de ne the reinsurance rules and conditions produces hard black-box optimization problems, that must be solved in order to obtain the optimal output of the reinsurance. The application of traditional optimization approaches is not possible in BBOP, so new computational paradigms must be applied to solve these problems. In this paper we show the performance of two evolutionary-based techniques (Evolutionary Programming and Particle Swarm Optimization). We provide an analysis in three BBOP in reinsurance, where the evolutionary-based approaches exhibit an excellent behaviour, nding the optimal solution within a fraction of the computational cost used by inspection or enumeration methods.

Salcedo-Sanz, S.; Carro-Calvo, L.; Claramunt, M.; Castañer, A.; Mármol, M.

XREAP2013-04.pdf

                  Sobriety checkpoints are not usually randomly located by traffic authorities. As such, information provided by non-random alcohol tests cannot be used to infer the characteristics of the general driving population. In this paper a case study is presented in which the prevalence of alcohol-impaired driving is estimated for the general population of drivers. A stratified probabilistic sample was designed to represent vehicles circulating in non-urban areas of Catalonia (Spain), a region characterized by its complex transportation network and dense traffic around the metropolis of Barcelona. Random breath alcohol concentration tests were performed during spring 2012 on 7,596 drivers. The estimated prevalence of alcohol-impaired drivers was 1.29%, which is roughly a third of the rate obtained in non-random tests. Higher rates were found on weekends (1.90% on Saturdays, 4.29% on Sundays) and especially at night. The rate is higher for men (1.45%) than for women (0.64%) and the percentage of positive outcomes shows an increasing pattern with age. In vehicles with two occupants, the proportion of alcohol-impaired drivers is estimated at 2.62%, but when the driver was alone the rate drops to 0.84%, which might reflect the socialization of drinking habits. The results are compared with outcomes in previous surveys, showing a decreasing trend in the prevalence of alcohol-impaired drivers over time.

Alcañiz, M. (RFA, XREAP), Guillén, M. (RFA, XREAP), Sánchez-Moscona, D. (RFA, XREAP), Santolino, M. (RFA, XREAP), Llatje, O., Ramon, Ll.

XREAP2013-05.pdf