On 28 February 2006, the Director of the Rafael del Pino Foundation, Amadeo Petitbò, and the Vice-Rector for Research and Innovation of the Carlos III University of Madrid, José Manuel Torralba, signed a Scientific Research, Development and Technological Innovation Agreement whose general objective is to regulate the participation of the Foundation as sponsor of the macroeconomic prediction and analysis project of the Flores de Lemus Institute.
The project has been led by Professor Antoni Espasa, Professor of Econometrics, Director of the Flores de Lemus Institute and researcher in charge of the Macroeconomic Analysis and Forecasting Laboratory of the Carlos III University of Madrid. According to Professor Espasa's explanatory statement, "this is a university project that aims to carry out rigorous periodic analyses, fully based on solid econometric forecasts and results, on the Spanish economy and on those of economic areas with which Spain has a special link. At present, the area most extensively covered is the euro area, which is the subject of a general macroeconomic analysis and a specific analysis of inflation and monetary policy.
The latter also extends to the United States, due to the influence that its economy has on the exchange rate of the euro against the dollar, and to all the countries of the Euro group15. The analyses of the Spanish economy are carried out, whenever the econometric support developed allows it, by interrelating three levels of study, macroeconomic, sectoral and regional, and inserting it in the context of the euro area. The project is reflected in the monthly publication -in Spanish and English- of the Inflation and Macroeconomic Analysis Bulletin. The project was well received by the media. Among the works published, the article "Immigrants help sustain Spain's long building boom" (Financial Times, 19/04/06), largely based on the results of one of the Bulletins, stands out.
