This paper analyses to what extent the Spanish provinces have shown a convergence process since 1980 to nowadays. The application of the Phillips-Sul methodology to the HDI recently developped by IVIE lead us to show that we cannot admit the exitence of a unique convergence process between them....

The addressing to rural areas, coupled with the identification of indicators characterizing the degree of resource endowment, derives both from the size of the rural area and also from the share of employment in productive activities of social and cultural services, habitat, etc. Although the...

Decentralization can be generally described as a process in which selected functions are assigned to sub-national units. The literature identifies number of positive consequences of decentralization which all lead to better satisfaction of citizens? needs for public services. Although...

We study the connection between economic performance and the quality of government institutions for the sample of 103 Italian NUTS3 regions, including new measures of institutional quality calculated using data on the provision of four areas of public service: health, educational...

The recent worldwide economic crisis requires a new focus on the theoretical framework of analysis of local development. Particular attention has been devoted to the study of the role of territories, no longer conceived as pure geographic spaces, but rather an important resource that can...