Patricia Bachiller

La educación es una herramienta clave para combatir tanto la pobreza económica como la exclusión social. En este contexto, la educación financiera adquiere especial relevancia, ya que permite evaluar la capacidad de las personas para tomar decisiones financieras cotidianas de manera informada. Este trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar el nivel de competencias financieras de la población española y la evolución de sus conocimientos sobre conceptos financieros básicos, tratando de identificar la existencia de diferentes comportamientos entre los grupos considerados a priori más vulnerables. La metodología empleada combina análisis de estadísticas descriptivas de la Encuesta de Competencias Financieras del Banco de España (2016 y 2021), la prueba U de Mann-Whitney y una prueba t para comparar medias por género, edad e ingresos. Los resultados indican un nivel aceptable de competencias financieras básicas en España, con una tendencia positiva entre 2016 y 2021, aunque se aprecian diferencias significativas según género, edad y tramo de ingresos de la población. Además, existe una carencia en habilidades matemáticas que limita la comprensión de conceptos avanzados, decisivos para una gestión eficaz. También se resalta la necesidad de fortalecer la supervisión para adaptar los programas de educación financiera, asegurando su efectividad en un contexto cambiante. Esto es esencial para proporcionar a las personas las habilidades necesarias para gestionar sus finanzas adecuadamente.

Financial literacy has traditionally been studied as a key determinant of individual financial decision-making, wealth accumulation, and long-term economic well-being. However, its potential contribution to sustainable development remains comparatively underexplored in the academic literature. Drawing on evidence from previous empirical and conceptual studies, this study proposes a framework to understand the relationship between financial literacy and sustainable development, highlighting the mechanisms through which financial literacy may contribute to the achievement of selected United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly in terms of economic resilience, social inclusion, and intergenerational sustainability. The literature suggests that financial literacy may support sustainable development through its association with savings behaviour, financial inclusion, retirement preparedness, and long-term decision-making. By bringing together evidence that has largely remained fragmented across different research streams, the study highlights the potential role of financial education as a public policy instrument within broader sustainability and governance frameworks.

The need to reduce public sector costs and debt has resulted in the implementation of requirements in many countries. Spain belongs to a group of countries which monitor the financial health of their local governments, using financial indicators enforced by law, and reporting this information periodically. The objective of this paper is to analyse whether the introduction of the 2012 Spanish legislation regarding fiscal stability and budgetary balance and Ministry of Finance Order 1781/2013, which develop new indicators, have led to improvements in the financial health of local governments. The results of our analysis show that the introduction of legal requirements is effective and that the disclosure of indicators for benchmarking purposes has been beneficial and positive, although this is not so in all cases. The practical implication of this study is that the dual demands of evaluating the financial situations of local governments and disclosing this information reinforce their responsibility with respect to the general interest. This enables the comparative evolution of indicators, concluding that requirements are also needed to ensure that the goals are achieved, thereby helping to restore the reliability and transparency of their activities.

Flip teaching (FT) is a methodology with a significant impact on the educational innovation trend that encourages active learning and facilitates the learning of students. The main objective of this study is to measure the impact of flip teaching on the learning of a course at a higher education institution. To analyze the differences in the exam marks between students that follow FT and other methodologies, the t-statistic and Mann–Whitney U test have been used. Results indicate that FT allows improving the performance of students and achieving collateral capacities, such as responsibility and awareness, making learning more sustainable. This study makes an interesting contribution to existing research in education and demonstrates that it is possible to introduce FT in a block of the course and can be transferable to other courses.

Local Governments (LGs) have strengthened the financial control as a consequence of mandatory requirements to ensure financial sustainability in their management. The aim of this study is to determine whether financial indicators about financial conditions defined in Spanish regulation are backed by worldwide generally accepted financial benchmarking indicators. For this purpose, we analyze the relationship between Spanish indicators of financial sustainability based on European Union (EU) regulations and Financial Trends Monitoring System Indicators (FTMS) of the International City/County Management Association (ICMA). For this purpose, two methodologies are applied: discriminant analysis and logistic regression, where the dependent variables are each of the Spanish financial indicators and the independent variables are ICMA indicators. The evidence supports that variables that are related to the control of expenditures, debt and the revenues show a greater explanatory power of financial sustainability, being the most important elements which offer relevant information about the financial sustainability measurement of LGs.

The heavy politicization of the corporate governance of the Spanish savings banks is shown in this paper to be a key factor explaining a large number of defaults. The authors explain the effect of political influence on savings banks boards of directors and provide empirical evidence about the factors that led to both poor performance and failures. The authors found a negative association between the percentage of savings banks’ board members appointed by politicians and performance. The demise of savings banks was important in terms of the public sector finances because the Spanish government had to spend millions of euros to rescue the banking system, with consequent cuts in government spending in other areas.