This study introduces a methodology to quantify knowledge flow in Spanish manufacturing firms, utilizing data from the Enterprise Strategy Survey (ESEE). A composite index is created through a structural equation model (SEM) featuring latent variables, which removes any subjectivity in weighting the dimensions. The analysis encompasses seven critical dimensions concerning innovation, R&D, work organization, and the Internet. Results indicate that dimensions linked to R&D significantly influence knowledge flow and, consequently, business productivity. The combination of R&D investment and the implementation of new organizational approaches in the workplace shows a positive and statistically significant correlation with enhanced productivity. These findings emphasize companies' need to embrace strategies that merge technological advancement with organizational innovation. In this regard, the knowledge flow index highlights the importance of incorporating both elements. This method provides a statistically sound tool for evaluating business competitiveness, emphasizing the necessity of integrating technology and organizational innovation within corporations’ strategies.

Although Public Finance, understood as an organization of the financial activity of the public sector, in its double aspect of income and expenditure, can be considered as old as the first organized states, it was initially oriented towards the development and financing of activities related to external security, internal order, the justice system and expenses related to the maintenance of the head of state.

It was necessary to wait until the end of the 19th century, and more precisely until the period between the two world wars (mainly at the end of the latter) for the Welfare State to appear, as we know it in our days. State intervention has been especially relevant in: pensions and public transfers, public services in health, education and other social issues, protection standards for workers, consumers and citizens in general, and policies aimed at encouraging the creation and access to employment, both public and private.

However, the evolution of the public sector necessary to maintain the Welfare State has shown a very marked tendency towards growth, which has not been accompanied by the quantitative and qualitative improvement of the public goods and services offered. Over the last decades, the study of these issues has made it possible to identify a series of variables, typical of the functioning of the democratic system and the bureaucracy itself, that explain its inefficient growth, and that should be identified and corrected to obtain a fair and efficient Welfare State.