Two opposing viewpoints can be found in recent literature on trends in welfare states. The first (efficiency thesis) envisages the retrenchment of the welfare state, while the second viewpoint (the ‘resilience theory’) holds that reforms and cutbacks in some parameters of social protection...

This article uses Theil's index to confirm the convergence of welfare effort in 21 developed countries. Taking advantage of the properties of this index, this article decomposes the dispersion of effort into its immediate determinants and thus illustrates that it is possible for there to be...

This study looks at the reorganization of production in the context of a multi-plant firm in the automotive industry. Changes in such firms may result in the closure of some plants and/or the opening of others. The article provides a method for assessing the risk of plant closure, and then...

The intended main output of this paper is a measurement of the dependence of the regional economy of Navarre (Northern Spain) on the Volkswagen plant producing the Polo model. Based on a field survey (qualitative interviews with 33 automotive suppliers) an exercise is developed to estimate the...