Welcome to the Economic Research Portal at the Banco de España

Outstanding referee award

Omar Rachedi has been awarded the 2019 referee prize of the Economic Journal, which recognizes the contribution of exceptional referees with an annual award.

Workshop: “Housing affordability: Policies in the rental market”

On November 20, the Banco de España hosted a workshop on “Housing affordability: Policies in the rental market”. The aim of this workshop is to analyze the characteristics and effects of some recent political experiences that have been carried out in various European rental markets. To this end, we have gathered four papers regarding various policies that are currently on the table: rent control, restrictions on holiday apartments, imposition of empty housing and social rental housing. Conference website

Job openings for PhD economists

The Banco de España is hiring in the job market. The Bank is interested in individuals with strong modeling and empirical skills to conduct high-quality policy-oriented research, to produce reports for the Bank's senior managament and to write for the Bank's publications. The application deadline is 15 November 2019. Job details

24th Meeting of the Central Bank Researchers Network CEMLA

On October 30 and 31, the Banco de España hosted the 24th Meeting of the Central Bank Researchers Network CEMLA. Dimitrios Tsomocos gave the keynote speech. Program  (263 KB)

6th World Bank-Banco de España International Policy Conference

On October 28, the Banco de España hosted the sixth joint policy conference with The World Bank, entitled: "Economic Policies in a Changing World”. The goal of this conference is to foster the discussion between academics and policy makers on the challenges of a changing world environment and its effects on emerging market economies and their economic policies. The conference includeed a keynote address by Jaume Ventura and two round tables: an academic panel with Ricardo Reis, Daniel Gros, Joana Silva and Jaume Ventura; and a policy panel with Manuel Caldeira Cabral, Alicia García Herrero, Enrique Alberola and Luis Óscar Moren. Conference website

7th Joint BdE-CEMFI Research Workshop

On October 22, 2019, the Banco de España hosted the 7^th Joint Research Workshop with CEMFI in which researchers from both institutions will discussed their recent work. This meeting continued the series of regular workshops meant to forge stronger links between the Banco de España and the wider Madrid research community. Program  (249 KB)

Young Economists Best Paper Award of the 7th Workshop in Macro Banking and Finance

The paper “Macroeconomics, Firm Dynamics and IPOs” by Beatriz González received the Young Economist Best Paper Award of the 7th Workshop in Macro Banking and Finance held at Collegio Carlo Alberto (Turin, Italy) on the 3rd and 4th of October 2019.

3rd Annual Workshop of the ESCB Research Cluster 3

On 10-11 October, the Banco de España hosted the Third Annual Workshop of the ESCB Research Cluster 3 on “Financial Stability, Macroprudential Regulation and Microprudential Supervision”, jointly organized with the Bank of Greece. This is one of the three Research Clusters set up by the Heads of Research of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB), with the aim of fostering interaction and collaboration between ESCB researchers working on fields of common interest. Conference website

Data Laboratory

The Banco de España has launched a data laboratory (BELab) to provide access to the research community to high-quality microdata compiled by the institution. BELab will be making microdata on non-financial corporations reporting to the Central Balance Sheet Data Office available to researchers. The dissemination of these data is part of the agreement entered into on 11 July this year between the Banco de España and the Spanish Mercantile and Property Registrars’ Association, which authorises the controlled or confidential use of this information. Like other laboratories of Eurosystem institutions, BELab is a member of the INEXDA1 network and applies protocols for secure access to sensitive data. Initially, data use will obligatorily be on the premises of the Banco de España (at calle Alcalá, 522), where a safe environment (an on-site laboratory or data room) is located. More information can be found here.

Third Banco de España Annual Research Conference

On 16-17 September 2019, the Banco de España hosted its Third Annual Research Conference at its Madrid headquarters. This year the theme of the conference was “The EMU at 20: current status and the way forward”. Leading scholars such as Giancarlo Corsetti, Emmanuel Farhi, Jordi Galí, Luc Laeven, Ramón Marimon, Ashoka Mody, Athanasios Orphanides, Thomas Philippon, Rafael Repullo, Tano Santos, Carmen Reinhart, Hélène Rey, and Ivan Werning, among others, participated. Program  (79 KB)

Global Imbalances and Capital Flows in the Era of New Technologies

On 10-11 September 2019, the Banco de España hosted the Global Imbalances and Capital Flows in the Era of New Technologies conference, co-organized with the RBWC (Reinventing Bretton Woods Committee). The conference consisted of six sessions covering hot topics in the public debate: global imbalances, China, spillovers to emerging countries, reforms of the global financial system, central bank money, and capital movements in a digital economy. Participants included governors, sub-governors, officials of several international financial institutions, economists in the private sector and think-tanks, and academics. Program  (240 KB).

Banco de España session at CEBRA Annual Meeting in NY

The Banco de España participated at CEBRA's annual conference (18-20.7.2019) as sponsor of the session “Monetary Policy in the New Normal”, in which Saki Bigio, Ragnar Juelsrud, John Roberts and Dominik Thaler presened papers adresing current challenges for monetary policy. Click the presenters for the respective papers.

A New Economic Policy Uncertainty Index for Spain

In this paper, Corinna Ghirelli, Javier J. Pérez and Alberto Urtasun construct an index of economic policy uncertainty for Spain based on newspaper coverage frequency, that follows closely the procedure in "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty" by Scott R. Baker, Nicholas Bloom and Steven J. Davis [2016, QJE]. This new index for Spain is now hosted by the influential Economic Policy Uncertainty website of Baker, Bloom and Davis. The index is to be updated every month in this website.

Workshop “Economic Consequences of Brexit”

On Thursday, 23rd May 2019 the Banco de España hosted a workshop on the opportunities and challenges for Europe that are associated to Brexit, bringing together Brexit experts from academia, private sector and policy making institutions. The keynote speech was given by Gregory Thwaites. Program  (161 KB)

Wage flexibility and its macroeconomic implications workshop

On May 22 2019, Banco de España hosted a workshop on “Wage flexibility and its macroeconomic implications”. The aim of the workshop was to analyze the costs and benefits of having higher wage flexibility. To this end, the first session presented two models deriving welfare implications of having higher wage flexibility under different macroeconomic circumstances. The second session presented two empirical papers regarding the potential effects of minimum wage developments in employment, technology and prices. Finally, the third session presented two papers regarding the effect of collective agreements on the response of wages and employment to negative shocks according to their different degree of centralization. Speakers were Jordi Galí (CREI, Universitat Pompeu Fabra y Barcelona GSE), Attila Lindner (UCL), Effrosyni Adamopoulou (University of Mannheim e IZA), Simon Janssen (IAB Nuremberg), Samuel Hurtado and Sergio Puente (Banco de España). Program  (271 KB)

ESSIM 2019 Conference

From May 7th to 10th, the Banco de España hosted the 27th CEPR European Summer Symposium in International Macroeconomics (ESSIM 2019) at its residence in Tarragona. The conference covered the following CEPR programme areas: International Macroeconomics and Finance (IMF), Monetary Economics and Fluctuations (MEF) and Macroeconomics and Growth (MG). Charles Engel (University of Wisconsin and CEPR), Pete Klenow (Stanford University and CEPR) and Laura Veldkamp (Columbia University and CEPR) participated as guest speakes. Program  (254 KB)

Special issue on taxes and transfers of the Journal of the Spanish Economic Association-SERIEs

A selection of papers from the special issue on taxes and transfers of the Journal of the Spanish Economic Association-SERIEs were presented at a conference hosted by the Bank of Spain on April 26, 2019. Editors for this special issue are Juan Carlos Conesa (Stony Brook University) and Javier Pérez (Bank of Spain). Understanding the implications of taxes and transfers is at the core of research in economics. There is a very broad set of topics that fall within this line of research, such as the impact of taxes and transfers on behavior individuals, households, and firms, fiscal federalism, redistribution and inequality, and tax evasion. The Workshop covers both empirical and theoretical papers addressing any of these important issues, or related issues, either from a micro or macroeconomic perspective. Program  (187 KB)

EABCN Conference: "Advances in Business Cycle Analysis"

On May 30-31 2019, the Banco de España hosted the EABCN Conference on Advances in Business Cycle Analysis at its headquarters in Madrid. The conference covered a broad range of themes related to empirical aspects of business cycles - in particular novel methodologies for dating business cycles and their effects on the economy. Marc Giannoni (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and CEPR), and Lucrezia Reichlin (London Business School and CEPR) have kindly accepted the invitation to give a talk at the conference.Program  (140 KB).

Carlo Giannini Award

The paper "Household portfolio choices and non linear income risk" by Julio Gálvez, has been recognized with the Carlo Giannini Award for the best paper on Macroeconometrics and Econometrics by young researchers by the Italian Econometric Society (SIdE).

Joint 7th CEPR Economic History Symposium and 5th Banco de España Economic History Seminar

On 30-31 May 2019 the Joint Seventh CEPR Economic History Symposium and Fifth Banco de España Economic History Seminar took place in Roda de Bará (Tarragona). The symposium aimed at bringing together leading researchers in the field. The event covered topics such as (i) Macroeconomic and financial history, (ii) Economic growth in the very long run, (iii) Institutions and economic development and (iv) The history of the international economy. 
Program  (64 KB)

New Occasional Visiting Scholar Program

The ADG Economics and Research has launched an Occasional Visiting Program aimed at keeping a high standard of achievement in the research output of the Banco de España. The program brings distinguished scholars to a few one-week stays in order to give advice on specific projects of the research staff. This year the Banco de España will host the following scholars:

Pol Antràs (Harvard University).

Jesús Fernández-Villaverde (University of Pennsylvania).

Miles Kimball (University of Michigan).

Tano Santos (Columbia University).

Banco de España Welcomes New Researchers

The Banco de España offers a warm welcome to our new researchers, who have recently joined the regular staff of the ADG Economics and Research.

The four researchers were recruited on the international job market, where the Banco de España has established a long tradition of hiring fresh PhDs from the most prestigious universities worldwide.

Find out more about our new researchers:

Adrián Carro is joining the Macroprudential Policy Division after spending three years as a Postdoctoral Research Officer at the University of Oxford. He holds a PhD in Physics from the Universitat de les Illes Balears. In his research he analyzes the systemic and distributional effects of macroprudential policies in models of heterogeneous and interacting agents.

Beatriz González is joining the Sectoral Analysis Division. She holds a PhD in Economics from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Her research aims at understanding how changes in policies and in the economic environment impact corporate finance and investment choices of firms and the size distribution of firms, and how these ultimately impact macroeconomic aggregates.

Margarita Machelett is joining the Microeconomic Analysis Division. She holds a PhD in Economics from Brown University. Her primary research fields are education and labor. In her work, she addresses questions related to gender issues and how government programs and policies affect children.

Myroslav Pidkuyko is joining the Microeconomic Studies Division. He holds a PhD from the University of Manchester, UK. His research interests are in macroeconomics with a focus on household finance, incomplete markets, and inequality.

Get to know also the last year's hirings: Julio Gálvez, Dmitry Khametshin, Pau Roldán.

Visiting Scholars

The Banco de España has established a Visiting Scholar Program with the aim of keeping the Banco at the forefront of central bank research. Participants are accomplished academic researches with an established reputation in the fields of economics and finance. Currently, the following scholars have the status of regular Visitors:

Javier Andrés (Universitat de València)

Jesús Gonzalo (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)

Nezih Guner (CEMFI)

José María Labeaga (UNED)

Sara Otal (Universidad de Alcala)

José Luis Peydró (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)

External evaluation of Banco de España research

In 2011, by request of the Governor, the research activities of the Banco de España were evaluated by an external panel, constituted by Professors Ricardo Caballero (MIT), Jordi Galí (UPF), and Lucrezia Reichlin (LBS), and Dr. Luis Servén (World Bank). The report and the response of the Banco de España are available here:

• Terms of evaluation  (56 KB)
• Evaluation report  (709 KB)
• Banco de España reply  (84 KB)