Convergência Regional na União Europeia: Evidência para o período 1990 – 2001

This paper tests the convergence hypothesis across the EU NUTS II regions between 1990 and 2001. It does that using the test of dispersion and estimating “Barro-type” regressions that relate economic growth to the initial income and other variables. It identifies the causes that can explain regional differences in output per capita, productivity and output per working-age person. The results show that there is convergence of output per capita and productivity, but not of output per working-age person. This is due to the fact that the evolution of demography plays in favour of convergence while employment does not. The paper also tests whether the eligibility for “objective 1” promotes faster convergence of these regions, but there is no evidence of that being the case. There is also evidence of conditional convergence among EU regions, with a positive impact of neighbouring-region dynamism in the speed of regional convergence, highlighting the importance of infrastructure investment in peripheral regions.