20.500.12556/RUL-182128 Do enforcement institutions matter for economic specialization? province-level evidence from Spain We test whether enforcement institutions shape regional specialization. Using administrative data for all Spanish provinces (NUTS-3) over 1999–2014 with juris- diction-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 activi- ties, 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. Španija regionalna politika regionalna ekonomika regionalni razvoj true false true Angleški jezik Slovenski jezik Članek v reviji 2026-04-24 13:43:01 2026-04-24 13:45:03 2026-04-25 04:48:51 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2026 0 0 37 str. article no. ǂ50 Vol. 75 2026 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova Objavljeno NiDoloceno 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 332.1 0570-1864 10.1007/s00168-026-01479-6 273674243 s00168-026-01479-6_(1).pdf s00168-026-01479-6_(1).pdf 1 0D8266E3EC391B1ADCF04EAF625C4E00 16fed802ff5618b2b9af0c5054bb199721a6c9e8391f3dad9135b2a040b53122 b4c8cae7-3fd2-11f1-b0ab-0050569b8976 https://repozitorij.uni-lj.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=233100 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00168-026-01479-6 0 baebfc68-3fd2-11f1-b0ab-0050569b8976 https://repozitorij.uni-lj.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=233101 Ekonomska fakulteta 0 0 0