An empirical analysis of employment and growth dynamics in the Italian and Polish regions

This paper intends to contribute to the compared empirical analysis of “old” (15) and “new” (10) EU members, especially focusing on Poland and Italy, with regards to per-capita GDP and employment performance convergences and differences, mainly at the regional level (NUTS-2) for the period 1995-2001. In Section 2 we analyse (i) the per-capita GDP levels and growth rates (correlation with human capital, employment rate, etc.) and convergence dynamics (β conditional convergence) for 249 EU-25 regions and (ii) the GDP density estimations and Lowess β convergence for the 16 Polish and 20 Italian regions. In Section 3, we study (i) the compared employment performance of “old” and “new” EU members with respect to the objectives of the European Employment Strategy, (ii) the β convergence dynamic of employment rates for 249 EU-25 regions (distinguishing between “old” and “new” EU members’ regions) and (iii) the employment density estimations and Lowess β convergence for the Polish and Italian regions. In Section 4, in order to evaluate and compare similarities and differences between the 36 Polish and Italian regions, a cluster analysis is carried out considering both employment/unemployment variables and the sectorial employment composition (NACE 1 sector classification). In the final Section, the main results and some policy implications are briefly presented.