José M. Casado-Díaz

Biography

I am a Full Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute of International Economics (IEI) at the University of Alicante, Spain. My main research areas are (a) the delimitation and analysis of functional areas, with a special emphasis on local labour markets, and (b) the study of the labour market using microdata.

My work in the field of functional areas delineation and analysis has focused on adapting international methods to the Spanish context and developing new regionalisation procedures with an optimisation approach, using genetic algorithms, applied to both national and international cases. Currently, I am particularly interested on the potential use of data derived from mobile phone locations and administrative records for the delineation of functional areas. Additionally, we are analysing the resilience of local labour markets and developing indicators to evaluate their vulnerability and job precariousness. The results of this research have been published in journals such as Regional Studies, Urban Geography, Papers in Regional Science, Geographical Analysis, Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, Expert Systems with Applications, Spatial Economic Analysis, Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy, Moravian Geographical Reports, and the International Journal of Automation and Computation, among others.

My second line of research centres on analysing the labour market. Within this area, I have conducted studies addressing issues such as work commuting, the relationship between education and wages, over-education, job satisfaction, and wage inequality, often in relation to the tourism sector. Currently, I am focusing on analysing the impact that the characteristics of local labour markets have on the work experience of groups such as women. The outcomes of this research have been published in journals such as Regional Studies, Papers in Regional Science, Applied Economics Letters, Transportation, Social Indicators Research, Revista de Economía Aplicada/Applied Economic Analysis, Tourism Management, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, Tourism Economics, Current Issues in Tourism, and Tourism Geographies, among others.

Since 2003, I have been the principal investigator in seven projects funded by successive editions of the Spanish National R&D&I Plan. At present, I am the co-principal investigator of the project "Local Labour Markets and Commuting: New Challenges" (PID2020-114896RB-I00, Agencia Estatal de Investigación, Spanish National R&D&I Programme - Research Challenges).

In terms of transferring research results to public administrations, I have participated in numerous contracts closely related to my research. Among others, I have been the principal investigator in two studies commissioned by the Valencian Institute of Statistics focused on the delineation of sub-regional and functional areas for the development of the Labour Force Survey. Together with Professor Coombes (Newcastle University), I coordinated the "Study on Comparable Labour Market Areas" (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cros/content/study-comparable-labour-market-areas_en), commissioned by the Statistical Office of the European Communities (EUROSTAT). This report significantly contributed to shaping new EU/Eurostat-OECD policies in this area. Recently, I co-directed a project funded by the Valencian regional government aimed at developing and applying a multidimensional index to measure employment vulnerability and precariousness at local scales (municipalities and labour market areas), within the context of public policy design, implementation, and evaluation. Additionally, I have participated as an expert advisor to regional governments in drafting new legislation on metropolitan area delineation and developing supramunicipal territorial action plans.

I served for ten years as Vice-Dean of International Relations at the Faculty of Economics and Business Sciences, University of Alicante. Currently, I am a member of the Academic Committee of the PhD Programme in Economics, the Faculty Board, and the University Senate. I was elected by the Senate as a member of the Committee for Reforming the Statutes of the University of Alicante. From 2020 to 2024, I served as a member of the University Governing Council representing university institutes.