This paper investigates the relationship between economic development and water pressures using a global Multiregional Input-Output model (MRIO) dataset that takes into account the increasingly connected global supply chains underlying the economic systems. In particular, we analyse differences in water indicator outcomes by income level among European Union countries (EU27) from 1995 to 2008, focusing specifically on production and consumption-based water metrics for the member states. We use panel fixed effects regressions to study the dynamics of adjustment of water resources alongside controlling for individual country heterogeneity. Our main results indicate that the effects differ substantially depending on the approach used for measurement, especially when we conditioned on the country economic development, indicating opposite trajectories of water consumption and per capita gross domestic product (GDP). Furthermore, the analysis of the main components associated to water indicators highlight the role of water embodied in trade flows as the transmission mechanisms of the main effects. In particular, our estimates suggest that the growth path followed by the most developed areas in the EU27 is based on the externalisation of the environmental burden over the less developed European partners, and external developing countries. On the policy front, our findings call for the implementation of integrated water resources management, technological specific policies and the corresponding environmental regulation to combine the conservation of water ecosystems and sustainable economic growth at the national, supranational and global levels.

A lack of longitudinal data prevents many countries from estimating dynamic models and, thus, from obtaining valuable evidence for policymaking in the field of education. This is the case of Spain, where recent education reforms have targeted secondary schools, but their design has been based on incomplete information regarding the evolution of student performance and far from robust evidence concerning just when educational inequalities are generated. This paper addresses the absence of longitudinal data required for performing such analyses by using a dynamic model with repeated cross-sectional data. We are able to link the reading competencies of students from the same cohort that participated in two international assessments at different ages (9/10 and 15/16) and so identify when educational gaps—in terms of gender, socio-economic status and place of birth—emerge. Our results suggest that educational inequalities in Spain originate in lower educational levels. These results stress the importance of early intervention for improving performance during the compulsory education and for tackling educational inequalities.

The regional concentration of poverty and the resulting disparities in living conditions create conditions where educational inequalities are intensified. These adverse conditions could lead teachers to refuse to work in disadvantaged locations that are characterised by high incidences of poverty and low-performing students. In this paper, we estimate how poverty in the districts where the schools are situated influences the probability that teachers accept a job offer in Costa Rica. Working with data on contract offers acceptance or rejection is a methodological novelty that makes it possible to dissociate students’ poverty from the poverty of the schools’ location. The estimation of a three‐level hierarchical model allows us to deal with aggregation bias and unobserved heterogeneity. The results show evidence that district poverty is a key determinant of teachers’ rejection of offers. Although the study uses data from Costa Rica, the results indicate more generally, how educational inequity can perpetuate poverty.