MADRID, University of Alcala

Luis Rubalcaba,
Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Alcalá,
Director of the Services, Innovation and Competitiveness Department at Servilab

Juan R.Cuadrado-Roura,
Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Alcalá and Founder Director of Servilab.

Andrés Maroto,
PhD in Applied Economics, Researcher at the University of Alcalá and Servilab, Visiting Professor of Microeconomics (Industrial Organization) at he Autónoma University of Madrid.

Stefano Visintin, Jorge Gallego and Gisela Di Meglio,
Researchers at the University of Alcalá and Servilab, PhD students in Applied Economics.

Research areas

• Services, innovation, competitiveness,

• business services, fairs and exhibitions,

• European policies,

• Public sector economics and productivity.

The Contribution of Public and Private Services to European Growth and Welfare, and the Role of Public-Private Innovation Networks, EU 7TH Framework Programme (2008-2011). Coordinator: University of Alcalá, Spain.
Innovation in Public Services, EU 5TH Framework Programme (2002-2005). Coordinator: STEP Group, Norway.

The New Service Economy:

Challenges and Policy Implications for Europe. Luis Rubalcaba, Edward Elgar. 2007, UK

Business Services in European Economic Growth. Edited by Luis Rubalcaba and Henk Kox, Palgrave-MacMillam. 2007, UK

La productividad de la economía española.
Andrés Maroto and Juan R. Cuadrado, Instituto de Estudios Económicos. 2006
Productivity is directly linked to possible improvements of the standard of living in the medium and long term, and to the competitive capacity of the economies. This book seeks to open the productivity debate in Spain, in the context of the negative annual growth rate the Spanish labour productivity is experiencing since 1996

The New Service Economy: Challenges and Policy Implications for Europe. Luis Rubalcaba, Edward Elgar. 2007 United Kingdom:
This book contributes to a better understanding of the service economy ; it explores the key dimensions, available empirical evidence and associated policy implications as well as the new challenges facing the global economy, including employment, productivity, innovation and competitiveness.


Further reading

Andrés Maroto and David Gago have recently obtained their PhD degree in Applied Economics at the University of Alcalá, Madrid, Spain. They have kindly participated in this brief interview:

1. What has been your experience as a PHD student?
A. M.: I think it has been a good experience. Despite some bad moments during this time, Ph.D. has provided me a key to get into the academic and university world, meet a lot of interesting and curious people and, specially, to work in a field which I like so much.
D.G. It has been a very exciting time of my life as it has given me the opportunity to take advantage of the knowledge of very skilful and gifted people to have a good command in the field of my Phd.
2. What is your thesis about?
A. M.: My PHD thesis is about productivity in service industries. In a first block, conventional and new developments about productivity and service sector are introduced. Then, the empirical block, tries to combine traditional and descriptive approaches with new non-parametric (Malmquist indexes, DEA, rank statistics) in order to analyze trends and patterns of productivity in the service sector as a whole and the different service activities in some industrialized countries, with particular focus on the Spanish case.
D.G.:
My Phd is about the role of ICT in promoting innovation impacts in services deploying multidimensional vision of innovation, as it not only takes into account traditional innovation impacts focused on productivity increase or cost reduction, but also considers market enlargement/scale economies, increase in quality standards, skills improvement or organisational impacts. To do so, an ad hoc survey was undertaken for the specific purpose of this Phd (The Autonomous Comunitiy of Madrid Service Innovation Survey), as well as an exploitation of the CIS III Survey. Impacts on scale economies are subject to a special treatment in this Phd, as a macromodel is also implemented to account for ICT externalities and ICT impact for both internal and external scale economies

3. How do you think RESER can be useful for PHD students working on services?
A.M.: RESER provides information, relationships and references on research on services. In addition, annual conference of RESER can provide links and networks for PHD students.
D.G. RESER is an useful arena for providing information exchange, contacts, up to date research on service industries and space, as well as a way to enrich the Phd work

4. What is the best memory you have from the day you approve your thesis?
A.M.: The sense that I had finished a work or task which I had started before, and finished it in a good way.
D.G. The feeling that, after a long travel, it was worth it. Besides I felt very satisfied as it was well received by the board and all my relatives were supporting me in such an important day.

SERVILAB

Universidad de Alcalá (Facultad de Económicas-Sala de las columnas)
Plaza de la Victoria, 1 C.P. 28802
Alcalá de Henares (Madrid)
Telf. (00 34) 91 885 52 25
Fax: (00 34) 91 885 52 11
url:http://www.servilab.org/

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