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This paper aims to examine the impact of capital grants on the fiscal choices of Spanish regional governments from 1984 to 2021.

After running a battery of tests to verify the integration order of variables, joint cointegration and causality direction, the authors estimate a series of vector autoregressive models.

The results show that capital grants were highly effective until 2007, boosting capital expenditure and generating a significant crowding-in effect on capital expenditure in the long run. Then, the authors specifically analyze structural changes due to the deep impact of the Great Recession in Spain since 2008. However, the crowding-in effect still holds. Conditionality and matching rates are relevant elements of a sound definition of grant programs to subcentral governments.

The findings contribute significantly to the existing literature on fiscal federalism and regional economics.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze if choices made by family businesses (FBs) regarding job stability in economic recessions are different, on average, to those made by nonfamily firms. Moreover, the study tries to elucidate if this potential difference depends on the family generation that is in charge. The analysis relies upon a sample of 55,091 Spanish firms, as Spain is one of the countries that suffered the greatest impact of the 2008 Great Recession.

To test the hypotheses, the authors built a database of 55,091 Spanish firms, 45,351 family firms and 9,740 nonfamily firms, for the period 2007–2015. Based on the socioemotional wealth (SEW) approach, this article sheds light on the question of whether family identification, binding social ties and long-term vision lead FB to behave differently from nonfamily businesses in human resource management.

In times of crisis, FBs do maintain jobs to a higher extent than nonfamily businesses, and this effect is especially intense when the first generation is in charge. According to the SEW approach, the emotional links between ownership and management make the firm more prudent when hiring during good times and when firing in times of crisis. This makes employment in FBs more stable than in private ones. This result has two positive effects. Higher job stability is an additional contribution of family firms to social welfare and happiness. Furthermore, a larger share of family firms involves stronger automatic macrostabilizers to deal with the business cycle, supplementing fiscal macrostabilizers, such as personal income tax (PIT) or unemployment insurance.

Family firms maintained employment more than nonfamily firms did during the crisis. The emotional links between ownership and management and the long-term vision make the firm more prudent when hiring during good times and when firing in times of crisis. These features could make family firms more cautious in terms of hiring and firing and thus enable them to offer their employees implicit employment protection and stability. This positive effect decreases as firm age advances, due to the minor linkage between ownership and employees, in spite of maintaining identification and long-term vision.

From a policy perspective, greater job stability is an additional contribution of family firms to social welfare and happiness. Hence, a larger share of family firms would involve stronger automatic macrostabilizers to deal with the business cycle, supplementing well-known fiscal macrostabilizers such as the PIT or unemployment insurance. The idea of family firms as countercyclical agents linking the micro dimension with the macro dimension becomes more interesting in the present context with the crisis generated by COVID-19.

In addition to contributing to the scarce literature on FB and employment in times of crisis, this paper also considers the generational effect on employment in the economic crisis context from the SEW approach. In addition, sound econometric methodology applied using an extremely large database grounded the results. In contrast with studies in the FB field that have typically focused on large listed firms (Mazzi, 2011), the study relies upon a database of privately held companies, which are more representative of FBs in civil law countries, such as Spain. The Spanish case is particularly interesting because it was one of the OECD countries shocked by the Great Recession. Finally, the authors propose family firms as countercyclical agents linking the micro dimension to the macro dimension.

The purpose of this paper is to find throughout history examples of wealth management of a family or business families that can be assimilated into the current concept of family offices (FOs). In such examples, the study identifies characteristics associated with the different dimensions of the concept of socioemotional wealth (SEW).

Drawing on the socioemotional perspective, this paper relates significant examples of FOs based on historical stages (ancient history, the middle ages, modern history, the contemporary period and the actual world). Each case is discussed with an effort to identify the dimensions of the SEW that fit and help in understanding the organization studied.

Mainly, FOs allow the management of the family legacy, philanthropy, promotion of entrepreneurship and family wealth preservation for future generations. Autonomy in decision-making, privacy and confidentiality and the achievement of more intangible goals make the FO preferable to other institutions. Through the study of historical cases, the FO constitutes a structure with objectives and activities that have remained consistent from Rome to the present, regardless of historical, political or social context. The results also identify four out of five FIBER dimensions of SEW.

In addition to contributing to the scarce literature on FOs, this paper uses various examples of historical periods to better understand its origin, evolution and current state. A selection of examples at different times allows us to verify that FOs undergo a series of changes throughout history but maintain their characteristics regardless of the historical context. This paper is the first to explore the origin and development of the FO as organization. Building on the findings, the authors present a conceptual SEW framework to deepen in the knowledge of FO. This framework could help researchers and practitioners in future researches providing a conceptual link that demonstrates the components of the SEW perspective best fit the objectives pursued by business families when establishing a family office.

Studies that measure the economic impact of events usually disclose deterministic results. This situation implies a methodological problem that compromises the veracity of the estimates. This aspect is particularly relevant in the field of sports tourism. For these reasons, this study aims to empirically analyse the estimate of the initial injection of money from sporting events considering uncertainty, and show its variability.

Using surveys from five sporting events, a database with a total of 2,902 responses is analysed. With these cases as illustration to show the problem, the initial injection of money from the events is estimated. To include the uncertainty derived from the use of data gathered in the surveys, the confidence intervals are obtained using bootstrap.

The authors find remarkable differences between the current study’s results and deterministic results. In general, except for one of the events studied, the adverse possible scenario of being in the lower limit is higher than the more positive possible scenario. Moreover, in some cases, the lower limit is around one-third of the average or higher. It can imply an important cut in the expected impact. The results obtained allow us to show the differences between deterministic studies and those which include uncertainty.

The work presents prominent implications. Empirically, the inclusion of uncertainty in economic impact studies provides greater reliability to the results, defeating the idea of deterministic estimates. Managerially, working only with deterministic results limits the decision-making capacity of managers, and speculation increases in impact studies.

The purpose of this paper is to apply Moore’s public value model into the context of e-government research by examining online financial transparency as both an organizational goal and as a driving force for financial sustainability and public officials’ corruption. The empirical context comprises the state governments in the USA.

Structural equation modeling is used to examine the relationship between specific contextual factors of the authorizing environment, financial sustainability, public official corruption and online budget transparency.

The results show that contextual factors like population explain online financial transparency, while financial sustainability and corruption had moderating and negative effects.

Governments that struggle with issues of financial sustainability and corruption will rely more on online financial transparency. Transparency increases detection of public corruption.

The effects of financial transparency and financial sustainability on corruption have been studied separately. This study fills the gap of understanding the effects of both on corruption as one phenomenon.

Cases of corruption, embezzlement, theft and fraud, abuse of discretion, favoritism, nepotism, clientelism, and abuse of power in governments have led to a growing demand from society to access public information. In response to this demand, governments have been forced to be more transparent in the conduct of their activities. The information transparency index (TI) may be conditioned by economic and political characteristics of local governments affecting the information provided. What factors influenced the index of municipal transparency? Literature about transparency is largely based on the explanations of the agency theory and the legitimacy theory. Based on the postulates of both theories, the purpose of this paper is twofold. First, study the index transparency in Spanish municipalities, and, second, determine the main features that are affecting the index of transparency.

Data were collected from Transparency International Spain ranking and from official sources. Univariate and multivariate analysis are performed for the treatment of data.

The results shows that political factors like electoral turnout, political ideology, and political competition have a significant effect on the index of transparency. Gender has no significant effect on the index of transparency.

This study is a contribution to the growing body literature of transparency in order to understand what explains the variations of the TI among municipalities.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to identify legislators’ policy on the mandatory, online proactive disclosure of information; and to identify environmental influences on behaviour in this respect. To implement these proactive policies on transparency included in the legislative frameworks, internet websites are being used as a means of disseminating this proactive information.

To achieve these goals, by application of the theories used to analyse the causes of information disclosure, the authors first developed an index of online proactive disclosure; then, by means of a regression analysis, the authors examined and tested eight hypotheses related to environmental variables.

The results obtained show that legislators have chosen to require scant online proactive information on which to base institutional legitimacy, and that in this respect they are influenced by how long the previous laws have been in force, by the level of public sector borrowing and by the degree of political commitment among the population.

The results obtained from this study will provide valuable information for future legislators and for civil society about information policies, clarifying the amount and nature of information that, according to the authorities, should be disclosed without the need for prior request. The paper is also intended to stimulate the development of further research in this area, by showing how different economic, political, social, cultural and institutional contexts influence the decisions taken regarding the public information that must be reported proactively to stakeholders.

This manuscript studies municipal transparency in Iberian countries, Spain and Portugal, to analyse similarities and differences in both countries. Despite some political-administrative similarities, the way Spain and Portugal, deal with the issue of transparency may vary.

Based on the levels of municipal transparency, this work aims to analyse how legal and institutional context and political factors framed the way municipalities are managing the “naming and shaming” approach resulting from the creation of the Municipal Transparency Index. A descriptive analysis of the levels of municipal transparency will be carried out and a multivariate analysis to study the characteristics that may be determining differences and similarities between the two countries.

The study shows similarities in municipal transparency in Iberian countries, the positive effect of the “naming and shaming” approach on transparency and the influence of legal and institutional factors in transparency.

While there is extensive attention to municipal transparency at the country level, less research focuses on comparing municipal transparency in countries that have similar political-administrative characteristics. This study addresses this research gap by investigating two neighbouring countries.