The REVISTA DE ECONOMÍA APLICADA was founded in 1993 with the objective of extending and enriching the flow of the best economic literature produced by the many university departments and research centres currently operating in Spain, under a policy of intellectual rigour and openness. One of its primary motivations is to reduce the imbalance between the still limited number of academic journals of a high standard published in Spain and the ever more numerous collections of working papers and scientific meetings which, dedicated to a range of different disciplines, are indicative of a much higher potential than can actually be appreciated from the pages of such journals.

The REVISTA DE ECONOMÍA APLICADA, which is published every four months, welcomes submissions from all fields of applied economic analysis, without requiring any further degree of specialisation. It represents an appropriate outlet for all those applied research papers whose aim is to deepen our knowledge of reality through the appropriate use of the principles of economic analysis, whether these be formal, technical or discursive, and whether established or proposed as experimental alternatives. Thus, the journal has an integrating vocation so far as its contents is concerned, covering a broad spectrum of themes, from the most habitual in applied economic analysis to the most novel. Its objective is to place at the disposal of the academic community, as well as of leading professional and business circles and public sector managers, a balanced corpus of scientific contributions which throw light on the relevant problems faced by both the Spanish and the international economy.

The REVISTA DE ECONOMÍA APLICADA is governed by an Editorial Board made up of a Chairman, a Director, three Editors, nine Associate Editors and a Secretary. It is the task of the Chairman and the Director to ensure that the founding objectives are complied with and to co-ordinate the different aspects of the journal's operations. The Editors and Associate Editors assume full intellectual responsibility for publication and control the quality of the original papers submitted to it, which are in any event always subject to an anonymous evaluation process on the part of qualified specialists. This evaluation process is required to be constructive in its approach, in such a way that it adds value to the papers received and selected and stimulates the authors to redraft their originals, as appropriate, so as to achieve the high level of academic content that the journal aspires to maintain. In this way, the anonymous evaluation process, as well as acting as a guarantee of quality, also provides a stimulus to the research by establishing a sense of collaboration or "critical complicity" between scholars. The Editors and Associate Editors are appointed for fixed terms and are replaced on a regular basis by agreement between the Chairman, the Director and the Editors.