Mobilité du capital, polarisation des activités et union européenne

With the implementation of the European currency, adjustment mechanisms within the EU (European Union) deeply change. This article focuses on capital mobility, highlighted through foreign direct investment (FDI). The determinants of intra-European FDI and their impact on country specialisation are successively considered, discerning counterbalancing and agglomeration factors. We show that such as geographic proximity, trade links and market potential contributed to FDI concentration in core countries while FDI facilitate industrial diversification in host countries. As economic integration progress, Europe moves from a product-based industrial specialisation to a more vertical specialisation based on quality differences and technological levels. The more advanced countries get more and more specialised in high-quality and technology intensive goods while peripheral countries remain dependent from low-tech and low quality products. In the same time, spatial concentration of labour-intensive industries has increased.