than that of the rest of the population. spain is the country with the lowest proportion of students who receive some basic financial education at school. with the aim of promoting financial education in schools, the national securities market commission and the banco de espana signed a collaboration agreement with the ministry of education in september 2009 to implement the financial education plan. since then, high quality educational materials have been provided free of charge under this programme, to enable teachers to include the basic principles of budgeting, means of payment, saving and borrowing in compulsory secondary education. in the 2014 - 2015 academic year an initiative was launched to evaluate the extent to which the financial education plan is achieving its objectives. this was based on the valuable collaboration of the teaching staff, administrators and students of 77 schools in 12 regions, which taught the content of the programme to their students in steps, as established by the banco de espana. the results indicate that the programme has increased students ’ financial knowledge, in particular with regard to the use of means of payment provided by banks, and also – which is no mean feat – their readiness to save. activities relating to adults can the results for young people be extrapolated to the adult population? unfortunately, we know little about the level of financial knowledge of the adult spanish population. it is generally thought that spanish people are not well informed, but much of the evidence for this is based on unrepresentative information. accordingly, as part of a highly ambitious project, the banco de espana and the national securities market commission are preparing one of the most extensive surveys undertaken at international level : the financial competence survey, which forms part of the national statistical plan. this study, which we expect to be completed by the end of 2017, will include various original aspects to address the special characteristics of the spanish case. first, educational skills are decentralised. given the nature of financial competence, which varies significantly according to the level of education of the individual concerned, the project will use representative samples of the different levels in the various regions. second, the financial knowledge of each individual may not reflect that of the persons who actually take household decisions. for example, in spain, important financial decisions regarding house purchase and mortgage borrowing are taken at different ages than they are in other european countries, as a high proportion of young people live with their parents. as a result, information is sometimes needed on the financial competence of those members of the household who take saving and borrowing decisions affecting the whole household. 4 / 5 apart

growing incorporation of the population ( particularly the female population ) into the labour market to be compatible with further cuts in the unemployment rate, which stood at 8. 5 % on average in 2006, the lowest level since the late 1970s and practically on a par with the euro area average rate. the behaviour of employment denotes changes of some depth in the spanish labour market, such as the marked fall in the structural unemployment rate, which may be interpreted as an increase in the scope available for generating employment without wage pressures arising. the counterpart to an employment - intensive growth pattern has been modest increases in actual productivity. it is difficult to offer an accurate diagnosis of the reasons for this, given the difficulties of measuring and estimating productivity in the presence of significant structural changes, such as the composition effects arising from the concentration of growth in sectors that are relatively less dynamic productivity - wise. but what are possibly being reflected here are shortcomings in the quality of factors of production and in the characteristics of the business sector. that said, the responsiveness of supply is not proving sufficient to counter the pressure of expenditure on price formation. on one hand, compensation per employee quickened somewhat in 2006, but to a lesser extent than did wage settlements, as a result of the changes in composition and the factors boosting labour market flexibility that i referred to earlier. on the other, in a climate of buoyant sales, the widening of business margins continued, albeit at a lesser rate than in previous years. all these factors, combined with the rise in oil prices in the first half of the year, meant that inflation rose in 2006 and that the inflation differential with the euro area stood at 1. 4 pp. inflation began to perform more favourably in the closing months of 2006, a trend that has run into 2007, with the related differential being cut to 0. 5 pp. foreseeably, these inflation dynamics will remain in place for several months. but it should not be forgotten that the improvement has a temporary component, linked to the path of oil prices, and that core inflation remains at 2. 5 %, despite the continuing restraint of import prices. price and cost increases in 2006 once again outpaced those of our competitors, prolonging the deteriorating trend of the indices that measure relative prices and costs. insofar as this difference is not warranted by quality improvements, the trend of these indices reflects a loss in competitiveness, whose adverse consequences for growth will become patent once domestic demand moves back onto a