No abstract

Purpose Smart cities can be understood as an inclusive space for each and everyone to achieve their best options, within the framework of sustainable development, where institutions boost information and technology environments that help achieve the highest individual and social well-being with the aim of improving the lives of citizens. The youth group (between 15 and 24 years) was severely affected by the crisis. In this paper, youth employability, in relation to the new challenges of smart cities, is analyzed in the EU with the aim of assessing the influence of information and communication technologies (ICTs) skills on youth employability. Design/methodology/approach By means of a mean analysis and structural equation modeling, the differences between the Eurozone and the other countries in the EU is analyzed, as well as the importance of information technologies and the computer skills for increasing youth employability. Findings The results indicate that awareness of the importance of IT skills is greater in the Eurozone and that computer skills are highly significant to explain the employability of young people. Practical implications The achieved conclusions point out to the training on computers skills as a key factor for boosting youth employment. Social implications This work could provide some tools to help policymakers design instruments for increasing youth employment, as well as to provide training mechanisms to obtain the skilled workforce needed for the enterprises that emerged in the environment of smart cities. Originality/value The main original value of this work is to relate computers skills and the employment rates for youth in the framework of the European Union.

The difficulties of access to the labor market remains in the post-crisis period, particularly for younger people and for those countries more affected by the crisis. The economic conditions with the precariousness of the labor market and higher unemployment taxes for youth, draws a scenario where the risk of poverty and social exclusion could influence young people and discourage them from social and economic participation, and thus the number of young people not in employment, education, or training (NEETs) will increase. The sustainable development in general and the social sustainability in particular needs to solve this important issue to get a balanced and fair social and economic scenario. In this work, the influence of socio economic variables related to the level of prosperity of the country and social protection as well as the risk of poverty and social exclusion on young NEETs is evaluated based on the EUROSTAT data for the year, 2016, for young people. The method was a structural equations model and the results confirm that the key important factors for explaining the situation of the NEETs' are more related to poverty and exclusion than to the economic environment. The main conclusion from these results is the importance of implementing some inclusive actions to prevent an increase in the number of young NEETs, and boosting, in this way, a more balanced and sustainable society.

Society wellbeing is one the main goals of economic development. During the XX century, societies succeeded increasing their standard of living and the general welfare. But, in 2008, barely begun the XXI century, the strongest economic crisis ever known, destroyed much of the social achievements. Although the European Union had to deal with this situation by designing common policies, the member states have handled this crisis in many different ways. Their restrictive budgets affected a lot of social policies and its effects were mainly suffered for the most disadvantaged people. In this paper we deal with a structural equations model for assessing the population acceptation of those restrictions in health expenses. Spain has one of the best public health system all over the world, and that is the reason for choosing this country to conduct our survey. Our results point out the general disagreement with the cuts in health expenses.

El principal objetivo de este trabajo es analizar el beneficio percibido por el pago de impuestos en España y la satisfacción personal, en función de la predisposición a pagar impuestos, de la presión y fraude fiscales percibidos. Se propone un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales y se utilizan datos de la encuesta sobre opinión pública y política fiscal del Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS). Los resultados confirman que la satisfacción personal está relacionada con el beneficio percibido por el pago de impuestos y la moralidad fiscal, así como la importancia de la presión y el fraude fiscal como variables explicativas de dicho beneficio percibido. Las implicaciones de estas relaciones sobre la eficacia de las políticas fiscales pueden ser interesantes para los gestores de políticas públicas.