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Do enforcement institutions matter for economic specialization? province-level evidence from Spain

Juan Mora-Sanguinetti & Rok Spruk

The Annals of Regional Science: international journal of urban, regional and environmental research and policy2026https://doi.org/10.1007/s00168-026-01479-6article
AJG 2ABDC B
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

Abstract We test whether enforcement institutions shape regional specialization. Using administrative data for all Spanish provinces (NUTS-3) over 1999–2014 with jurisdiction-specific extensions, we measure judicial efficacy by court congestion in administrative and civil courts and identify its causal effect with historical, region-level instruments: foral civil-law stocks and special administrative tax regimes. We find that weaker enforcement shifts specialization away from manufacturing and toward services. In administrative-court specifications, a one standard-deviation increase in congestion rate lowers the manufacturing share by about 12–19% and raisesthe services share by 13–27%. Civil-court effects are smaller but of the same sign. Results are robust to redefining outcomes as complex vs. non-complex activities, aggregating outcomes to NUTS-2, alternative Bartik instrument structures, and identification-robust inference checks. The evidence implies that strengthening judicial enforcement, especially in the administrative jurisdiction, tilts economies toward contract-intensive production and slows premature deindustrialization.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s00168-026-01479-6

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@article{juan2026,
  title        = {{Do enforcement institutions matter for economic specialization? province-level evidence from Spain}},
  author       = {Juan Mora-Sanguinetti & Rok Spruk},
  journal      = {The Annals of Regional Science: international journal of urban, regional and environmental research and policy},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s00168-026-01479-6},
}

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.