Gisela Di Meglio

Purpose: This study examines the relationship between curricular university internships and labour market outcomes for university graduates in Spain. It investigates both short- and long-term associations across two graduate cohorts. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis draws on microdata from two cohorts (2014 and 2010) of the Spanish University Graduate Job Placement Survey. Linear probability models are estimated to assess the relationship between internship participation and several labour market outcomes, including job-search duration after graduation, as well as employment and salary status five years later. To address selection and omitted variable bias, the study applies several propensity-score-based approaches and Oster's (2019) method. Findings: Participation in curricular internships is consistently associated with a shorter time to secure the first job after graduation. However, no statistically significant relationship is found with longer-term employment or wage outcomes. The estimated associations remain stable across cohorts, suggesting that the relationship between internships and early labour market entry is similar under different macroeconomic and institutional contexts. These findings suggest that curricular internships may operate as a resilient mechanism for supporting the transition from higher education to employment. Originality/value: Spain offers a compelling case study, given the distinctive characteristics of its youth labour market and higher education system. By comparing short- and long-term outcomes across two graduate cohorts, this study offers new evidence on the temporal stability of the role curricular internships may play in the transition from education to employment.

Las nuevas Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación (TIC) están actualmente arraigadas en los sistemas educativos de los países desarrollados y en desarrollo. Sin embargo, la investigación académica sobre el impacto de las TIC en el rendimiento educativo todavía no es concluyente. Por ello, este artículo examina si disponer de ordenador con acceso a Internet en los hogares de los estudiantes tiene una recompensa en las puntuaciones obtenidas en matemáticas, lectura y ciencia. Además, analiza el efecto de disponer de TIC en el hogar sobre el fracaso escolar. A tal fin, la investigación emplea un procedimiento de emparejamiento utilizando la base de datos PISA disponible para Argentina. Los resultados muestran que, entre el grupo de estudiantes con un ordenador doméstico con conexión a Internet, el rendimiento educativo aumenta entre el 2,5% por ciento y el 3,5%, dependiendo de la competencia considerada y del método de emparejamiento empleado. Además, el acceso a TIC en el hogar reduce el fracaso escolar entre el 8% y el 18%. Estos hallazgos podrían validar aquellas políticas públicas recientemente implementadas en la región con el objetivo de la universalización de las TIC.

This paper examines customer-involvement in service innovation developed by Spanish tourism firms. This is done on the basis of a broad array of management tools targeted at engaging customers in new service developments (NSD) in an effective and systematic way. A multiple case study is performed across eight innovative tourism firms in Spain. Results show a limited awareness of formal customer-involvement methods. Some firms also underline how clients may lack the necessary knowledge to be co-participants of NSD. Innovation networks are highlighted as an important source of knowledge on new business opportunities.

Las prácticas en empresas que realizan los estudiantes a lo largo de sus estudios universitarios están profundamente arraigadas en los sistemas de educación superior actuales. Sin embargo, han sido prácticamente inexploradas en la investigación académica, sobre todo en el ámbito español. El objetivo de este artículo es analizar qué características de las prácticas en empresas y qué competencias adquiridas en las mismas determinan la inserción laboral de aquellos estudiantes que las han realizado. A tal fin, el término inserción laboral se adopta en un sentido amplio, abarcando tanto la empleabilidad actual de los graduados como su calidad salarial. Adicionalmente, se examina el grado de satisfacción y de utilidad percibido con la realización de dichas prácticas. La investigación se basa en información recopilada por medio de una encuesta realizada a estudiantes de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid que han realizado prácticas entre 2012-2016. Los resultados de la estimación de modelos lineales de probabilidad y probit, muestran que aquellas prácticas que permiten desarrollar las competencias de comunicación y de gestión de problemas mejoran, respectivamente, la probabilidad de estar empleado y la de situarse en tramos salariales elevados. Asimismo, el uso de nuevas tecnologías de comunicación e información (TICs) emerge como la competencia adquirida más importante, tanto en lo relativo a la satisfacción de los estudiantes con las prácticas como a la utilidad percibida de las mismas como medio efectivo de inserción laboral.

This study contributes to the debate on the premature deindustrialization of developing countries by analysing the contribution of services to aggregate productivity and output growth within a Kaldorian framework. The article revisits Kaldor's Growth Laws and empirically tests them for a number of economic activities, including four service branches across 29 developing economies in Asia, Latin America and sub‐Saharan Africa over three decades (1975–2005). Panel data estimations are complemented by a shift‐share decomposition of labour productivity growth. The findings support the Kaldorian argument for both manufacturing and business services’ contribution to aggregate productivity growth. Conversely, other services slow down aggregate productivity and output growth. The authors suggest qualifying and repositioning the debate on premature deindustrialization within a broader reflection on the opportunities for development linked to structural change. The analysis claims that these opportunities might include not only manufacturing sectors, but also business services.

Performance of the public sector is at the core of long-term wealth creation and welfare improvement. Yet, its measurement remains inadequate and flawed with data deficiency. In this paper we propose an extended framework for the assessment of public services performance that accounts for long-term impacts on welfare and empirically evaluate it across twenty-five European countries on the basis of a wide set of proxy indicators. We relate the performance scores to input costs indices and propose a coherent typology of countries that corresponds to the patterns of economic effectiveness of public services. The empirical analysis reveals that, because of differences in input costs across the enlarged EU, the economic effectiveness of public services varies to a much larger extent than the performance, with some relatively large-sized governments (Sweden, Denmark, Austria) being the most effective ones.

This paper shapes and identifies the varieties and dynamics of service economies in the EU 25. By adopting a neo‐Schumpeterian and evolutionary approach it contributes to enrich previous research dealing with national disparities from the perspective of services economic structures. Communalities across countries and time are detected and discussed at different levels of analysis. A wide set of models across the European region is found from an aggregated perspective. Moreover, the paper analyses the key dimensions explaining the different service models at sectoral level: structural change, knowledge and innovation, internationalisation and competition restrictions. The main result shows that structural composition of countries plays a prominent role, while heterogeneity is driven by dissimilarities in knowledge bases and innovative efforts across Europe.

This paper complements a large body of literature on structural change and underlying factors for the expansion of services. The main aim is to explore the determinants of the employment growth in the enlarged European Union from the perspective of various service groups, public, private and mixed services, and to identify which factors played the most significant role in the period 1995–2007. The roles played by standard determinants, the state, social and demographic changes, institutional framework of labour markets and membership to old EU15 considerably differ across service groups.