The main objective of the study is to analyze the most important determinants of monetary poverty (at macro-level) in the Western EU countries taking into account the effects of regional spillovers. According to the latest estimates over 16 per cent of the EU citizens are poor (based on monetary...

One of the targets of Europe's growth strategy (Europe 2020) is "reduction of poverty by aiming to lift at least 20 million people out of the risk of poverty or social exclusion". Since poverty is a multidimensional concept, EUROSTAT proposes three indicators to calculate it: people at...

When welfare is analysed in Sweden the analysis is usually made at the national level; when the analysis is not done on the national level, the local level is in focus to illuminate differences between municipalities. Studies on poverty are no exception. The regional level contains a lot of...

The boom of clusters is leading to an 'explosion' of initiatives which in many cases lack an integrated approach. There are some methodologies which although strong technically, are expensive and often impossible to implement due to the shortage of basic information. This study proposes a...