This study examines how political and fiscal decentralization are associated with subjective well-being across 140 European NUTS-2 regions using 2022 data. The results show that political decentralization is more strongly associated with life satisfaction in lower-governance regions in pooled models, suggesting a compensatory pattern. However, this relationship disappears once country fixed effects are introduced, indicating that the pooled association is driven primarily by cross-country institutional differences rather than robust within-country regional variation. Fiscal decentralization results are more mixed: broad expenditure, revenue, and transfer indicators are sensitive to specification, while regional discretion over personal income tax emerges as a more substantive form of fiscal autonomy within countries. Overall, the findings suggest that decentralization is not uniformly associated with higher well-being; its relationship with life satisfaction depends on the type of authority decentralized, governance quality, and broader national institutional context.
We analyze the determinants of the internal and foreign migrants’ decision regarding their employment status and examine the importance of second-language proficiency in bilingual economies. When arriving at a bilingual territory, migrants must decide if it is worth to learn the second official language. If one of the languages predominate in economic activity, there are less incentives for migrants to make the effort of learning the second language. However, if a local language contributes to build or strengthen a regional identity, learning it could help immigrants’ immersion in the receiving region. We use the Spanish Census in 2001, which exceptionally asked all participants about their knowledge of the co-official language in the bilingual regions. Our results show that second-language proficiency reduces the probability of being unemployed and stimulates self-employment. e impact becomes stronger among foreign migrants without Spanish as a first language and migrants arriving after primary school and living in non-urban areas.
The paper addresses two research questions: first, what factors explain the continuity of the Cohesion Policy (CP); and second, to what extent such policy has contributed to reducing territorial disparities across the EU and to achieve other objectives. e article advances some hypotheses, and the analysis highlights the core pillars of the CP: its ‘philosophy’, evolving objectives, financial resources, and institutional architecture. It further evaluates outcomes in some key areas: convergence trends, infrastructure investment, human capital formation, and support for SMEs. The findings suggest that while CP has contributed to reducing territorial disparities and other positive achievements linked to the European economic and welfare growth, its effectiveness varies across regions, and some policy domains face persistent challenges such as effectiveness, bureaucratization, and regional/sectoral policy conflicts which give support to important criticisms.
El acceso a la vivienda constituye un problema creciente a escala global, con especial incidencia en jóvenes y colectivos vulnerables. El incremento sostenido de los precios de la vivienda, junto con el estancamiento de las rentas, ha generado una carga financiera excesiva para los hogares de menores rentas. La nueva Ley 12/2023 española por el derecho a la vivienda incorpora el concepto de asequibilidad, definido como aquel nivel de gasto en vivienda que no supera el 30 % de la renta de los hogares. El trabajo evidencia que dicha definición presenta limitaciones sustanciales. Se revisa la literatura sobre la asequibilidad, sus indicadores y métodos de medición, y se propone una redefinición del término para una política de vivienda más eficaz. La propuesta integra equidad vertical, rentas residuales mínimas y diferencias territoriales.
This paper examines the entry of new financial actors into the Castellón ceramic cluster between 2010 and 2024. By exploring the relationship between changing ownership structures and corporate growth strategies, it analyses three types of company acquisition with varying effects on the region. Drawing on a selection of news sources and corporate information, this study argues that financial actors do not always contribute to the broader aim of regional development, as they tend to focus on short-term speculative goals, while overlooking other social aspects that enable local companies to offer innovative and distinctive products and services linked to the territory. These concerns are particularly evident in the case of investment funds (IF) that manage a portfolio of investments in various businesses and engage primarily in financial strategies. These new owners have accelerated two different processes in the territory: business concentration and acquisition. However, there is no clear long-term benefit for the future of the acquired companies. e short-term approach driven by the temporary pressures of investment funds reduces incentives to invest in specific assets, and discourages investment in high-risk projects.
