Abstract. Deepening in the European Union (EU) integration process has enhanced the question of economic disparities at a regional level. The convergence process observed until the late seventies was exhausted onwards in coincidence with important changes in the economic activity. The paper shows how these factors would have provoked a regional differenciated response that, despite being important, would have not strengthened the decrease in regional inequalities. We use an alternative and (in our opinion) richer approach to the traditional convergence analysis, where the evolution of the whole regional distribution is what matters and not that of a representative economy. Moreover, when analysing inequalities among regional economies, the geographical space acquire an outstanding role. Hence, we apply spatial association tests and relate them to the convergence analysis.Resum. El avance en el proceso de integración ha aumentado el interés por la evolución de las disparidades económicas entre las regiones de la Unión Europea.El proceso de convergencia observado hasta finales de los setenta parece haberse agotado, coincidiendo con importantes cambios en el desarrollo de la actividad económica. El trabajo muestra como estos factores habrían provocado una respuesta regional diferenciada que, pese a ser importante, no habría contribuido a la disminución de las disparidades. En el trabajo se utiliza una aproximación alternativa a la empleada en el tradicional análisis de convergencia, donde lo que se considera es la evolución de la totalidad de la distribución y no unicamente aquélla de una economía representativa. Adicionalmente, cuando se estudian las disparidades entre economías regionales, el espacio adquiere un papel destacado.Por ello se aplican contrastes de asociación espacial y se relacionan con el análisis de convergencia. KEY WORDS: Convergence, EU regions, Distribution dynamics JEL classification: O40, O52, R12¡Error!Marcador no definido. IntroductionThe topic of regional economic convergence has generated considerable interest in recent years. In the case of the EU this interest has been enhanced by the deepening and widening in the integration process. It is well known that the question of regional economic disparities acquired a relevant status both from an economic and political point of view with the accession of Greece, Spain andPortugal. The performance of these economies since then, as a whole as well as that of each one of their regions, might be seen as an empirical evidence of the impact of the integration process. In this sense, the implementation of the Single European Market and the Economic and Monetary Union might play an important role in the evolution of regional disparities, even though a consensus of their effects is far from being achieved from a theoretical point of view (Abraham and Van Rompuy 1995). In any case, there is a general agreement in the existence of a decrease in regional inequalities (ie convergence) from the fifties to the seventies and a relative stagnation afterwards...

This paper reviews almost four decades of contributions on the subject of supervised regionalization methods. These methods aggregate a set of areas into a predefined number of spatially contiguous regions while optimizing certain aggregation criteria. The authors present a taxonomic scheme that classifies a wide range of regionalization methods into eight groups, based on the strategy applied for satisfying the spatial contiguity constraint. The paper concludes by providing a qualitative comparison of these groups in terms of a set of certain characteristics, and by suggesting future lines of research for extending and improving these methods.

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Due to its ageing population and low birth rates, the European Union (EU) will need to import foreign labour in the next decades. In this context, the EU neighbouring countries (ENC) are the main countries of origin and transit of legal and irregular migration towards Europe. Their economic, cultural, and historical links also make them an important potential source of labour. The objective of this paper is to analyse past and future trends in ENC-EU bilateral migration relationships. With this aim, we specify and estimate a gravity model for nearly 200 countries between 1960 and 2010. Next, we use the model to obtain medium-run migration forecasts. Our results show a clear increase in migratory pressures from ENC to the EU in the near future, but probably lower than initially expected.

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In order to know the degree of interleukin-8 (IL-8) production in the pleural space and its relationship to neutrophil activation, IL-8, neutrophil elastase (NE), and myeloperoxidase (MPO) were assessed in blood and pleural fluid (PF) of 219 patients with pleural effusions. Correlations between blood and PF IL-8, NE, and MPO were either absent or weak, except for IL-8 in transudates (r = 0.6745, p < 0.001). PF IL-8, NE, and MPO concentrations in cases of empyema were higher than in cases of effusion of other causes (p < 0.001). No significant differences in inflammatory markers were observed between parapneumonic and tuberculous fluids. IL-8, NE, and MPO levels in malignant, nonspecific, and transudative effusions were lower than in those due to infection, the lowest levels corresponding to transudates. No significant correlation was observed between PF IL-8 and neutrophil count in any group; in contrast, IL-8 was associated with NE and MPO in empyema (r = 0.7545, and r = 0.7283; p < 0.001), tuberculosis (r = 0.4016, p = 0.008 and r = 0.6545, p < 0.001), and nonspecific effusions (r = 0.3748, p = 0.007 and r = 0.3085, p = 0.028). Our results indicate that local production of markers of the nonspecific inflammatory response is high in both chronic and acute pleural infection, and suggest a role for IL-8 in the release of NE and MPO.

ABSTRACT:In recent years, we have seen how the quality of work life has been focused and defined by the European Commission (EC). In our study we compare the EC definition with the academic one and try to see how close they are. We also analyse the possibility of applying the institutional definition to the Spanish case through the development of specific indicators. Our main conclusions are that QWL is increasingly important for policy makers. In addition, it is essential to have objective indicators and to conduct surveys in order to reliably measure QWL.♣ The results presented in this study were obtained within the framework of the project "Estudio Manpower Professional. Calidad Laboral", funded by Manpower Professional. Of course, any errors are our own.

This work focuses on the study of the relationship between ownership and control structure of the company and its innovative activity. Its aim consists of analysing the role that may be played by determinants within the company related to ownership structure when the decision to incur research and development activities is taken as well as on the output of this innovative process. Among these determinants we may think of issues such as who owns the firm and how the control of decision-making is distributed, the nature of this control and the level of concentration of ownership, among others. The study is carried out for the year 2001 using a representative sample of Spanish manufacturing industries.Keywords: ownership and control structure, research and development, agency theory.JEL classifications: D210, O310, G320.Resumen: Este trabajo se centra en el estudio de la relación entre la estructura de propiedad y control de la empresa y la actividad innovadora de la misma. Se pretende analizar el papel que pueden desempeñar ciertos determinantes internos a la empresa relacionados con la estructura de propiedad tanto en la decisión de incurrir en gastos de I+D como en el resultado innovador obtenido por la empresa. Del análisis realizado se podrán extraer conclusiones sobre el efecto que ciertos mecanismos adoptados para paliar los problemas de agencia surgidos por la no identidad entre propiedad y control en puestos de toma de decisiones tienen en la gestión de actividades innovadoras en la empresa. El estudio se realiza para el año 2001 tomando una muestra representativa de las industrias manufactureras españolas.