This paper provides the first evidence on the dynamics of immigrant students' achievement following their migration to Spain. Using the data from 2003, 2006 and 2009 wave of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), we show that immigrant students tend to perform significantly worse than native students, but that their performance improves with time spent in Spain. Among immigrants, Latin Americans enjoy an initial linguistic advantage, which, however, does not help them to catch up faster. The rate of improvement is such that students who stay almost all their lives in Spain still perform worse than natives in all domains analyzed by PISA. To better understand this achievement gap, we decompose it into parts attributable to school quality and to family characteristics. We observe that most of the gap is explained by individual and family characteristics and that less than 15 % We gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments and suggestions received from Victor Aguirregabiria (editor), the anonymous reviewer, Manuel Bagues, Michele Boldrin, Antonio Cabrales, Jose Ignacio García, Sergi Jiménez, and participants at the European Economic Association (EEA) Congress, the European Association of Labour Economists (EALE) conference, the Spanish Economic Association (SAE) Congress, and the FEDEA workshop on the economic effects of immigration. We also acknowledge the financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, Project ECO2008-06395-C05-05. of it can be attributed to differential school attendance. Overall, the evidence suggests that policies that do not target the learning environment in disadvantaged families are likely to have a limited impact on the native-immigrant achievement gap.

AbstractThe relationship between crime and immigration has been a matter of controversy in the US and around the world. This paper investigates empirically the case of Spain. From 1999 to 2009, Spain has had a large wave of immigration from different areas of the globe. At the same time, crime rates have increased. However, by comparison with other European countries that have received similar massive immigration waves during the same period, crime rates in Spain have increased less considerably. We show that there is a significant relationship between crime and immigration. Nevertheless, the explanation is found in the specific characteristics of the different immigration groups, particularly in the amount and type of human capital, which is a result largely in tune with previous studies on US immigration and crime.• This paper is based on a larger project developed by FEDEA on the economics and sociology of immigration in Spain (2008). Garoupa acknowledges the financial support of the European Commission, MMECC (EC Project 044422) and Alonso-Borrego acknowledges the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Grant ECO2009-11165). We are grateful to

Specialized courts have become a key component of the legal reform packages implemented in civil law countries, particularly, in the area of family law. One argument for this policy is that they are able to reach a decision faster than the regular courts, which are normally congested. We use data from a survey of Spanish family courts in the region of Madrid to test this claim. After controlling for other relevant variables, the econometric results did not provide strong support for specialized courts.

The paper considers the role of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in labor market issues. PPP consists of the collaboration between private agent(s) and the public sector in order to achieve a specific goal. There are many examples of partnerships between public and private agents in key areas such as infrastructure, healthcare and education, but PPP has not been sufficiently developed in the context of the labor market. This paper is structured into three parts: an economic analysis of PPP, examples of the most relevant PPPs in several different countries (with in-depth descriptions of successful examples) and recommendations. The economic analysis motivates and gives importance to PPP in labor affairs. The economic reasons for the public sector's intervention in the labor market originate from market failures and society's need for an equality that the private sector cannot afford. However, the public intervention process also generates some undesirable indirect effects. PPP is an effective instrument to solve any market and management failures deriving from the public provision of services. The best way to understand how PPPs work in practice is by looking at the different types of PPP undertaken; and considering interesting cases in significant (developed) countries. The examples concompany the mixture of PPPs depending on the economic situation and institutional framework of the country. The combination of a theoretical and practical economic approach allows us to present recommendations on how the human resources (HR) sector should tackle the dynamic, changing environment through the use of PPPs. Terms like "globalization," "flexicurity" and "personalization" have to be on the main agenda of policymakers and HR professionals through the successful creation process of PPPs.