..., the correlation between social spending and poverty becomes more negative at higher HDI levels. These results are robust to different estimation techniques. Originality/value The paper contributes to the literature on country characteristics affecting the social spending and poverty relationship through...

...Olga García-Luque; Matilde Lafuente-Lechuga; Úrsula Faura-Martínez Purpose Regional disparities in social risk levels threaten social cohesion in Spain, which cannot be justified by the territorial differences in social spending per capita. These divergences may encourage and spread nationalist...

... implications Poverty is an important social problem that more studies on this subject should examine various aspects and find policies to alleviate it. Originality/value Literature on poverty and social spending are growing and their results are contradictory. However, this paper clearly and significantly...