The University of Alicante is set to hold the XLI Alicante Conference on Spanish Economy on 5 and 6 November, focusing on three significant challenges impacting the current and future economic landscape of Spain: artificial intelligence, housing access, and shifts in the international geopolitical scenario. The event, themed "Spain facing major challenges: artificial intelligence, housing and geopolitics," will gather specialists from academic, economic, and institutional backgrounds to analyse ongoing transformations and their implications for the Spanish economy.
Organised annually by the Institute of International Economics at the University of Alicante (UA), the conference will take place in the auditorium of the Aulario II on the San Vicente del Raspeig campus. The event will feature thematic sessions with presentations and discussion spaces.
The programme will kick off on Thursday, 5 November, at 16:30 with an opening ceremony featuring Mari Carmen Tolosa Bailén, Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences at the University of Alicante; José Luis García Delgado, Honorary President of the Free Association of Economics (ALdE); and Hipólito Simón Pérez, co-director of the conference and Director of the Department of Applied Economic Analysis at UA.
The first session, starting at 17:00, will focus on artificial intelligence and its effects. Begoña Cueto Iglesias, Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Oviedo, will moderate discussions with Rafael Domènech, Head of Economic Analysis at BBVA Research and Professor at the Universitat de València, who will discuss the relationship between artificial intelligence, productivity, employment, and public policies. Manuel Hidalgo, Professor of Economics at Pablo de Olavide University, will examine the impact of technological change on the labour market and economic growth.
On Friday, 6 November, the second session, scheduled for 09:30, will address the housing issue. Ignacio Ezquiaga, associated with FUNCAS and the CajaMurcia Foundation, and Jorge Galindo, Director of EsadeEcPol, will discuss financing, supply, housing access, and its role in the social contract of the Spanish economy.
At 11:30, David López Rodríguez, Director of the Department of Analysis of the Spanish Economy at the Bank of Spain, will deliver the Germán Bernácer Chair lecture titled "Challenges of the Spanish economy in an uncertain global context." Following this, at 12:30, Judith Arnal, a counsellor at the Bank of Spain and principal researcher at the Real Instituto Elcano, the Centre for European Policy Studies, and Fedea, will present the Emilio Ontiveros lecture titled "Geoeconomics in times of change," introduced by Julián López, a professor in the Department of Applied Economic Analysis and a member of the Institute of International Economics at the University of Alicante.
The afternoon session, focusing on geopolitical challenges, will commence at 16:00 with presentations from Maribel de Luis, Director of Political and Geostrategic Studies at Repsol, who will analyse the geopolitical and geostrategic situation of 2026 and prospects for 2027, and Juan Moscoso del Prado from EsadeGeo, who will discuss the new international geoeconomic landscape.
The conference will conclude with the awarding of the conference medal and the Enrique Fuentes Quintana lecture at 17:30, delivered by Agustí Segarra Blasco, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, on the topic "From the steam engine to digital transformation: the paradoxes of technology," preceded by a laudatio from Mercedes Teruel, Professor of Economics at the same university. The closing is scheduled for 19:30.
