The European Union (EU) provides grants to disadvantaged regions of member states from two pools, the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund. The main goal of the associated transfers is to facilitate convergence of poor regions (in terms of per-capita income) to the EU average. We use data at...

Since the early 1990s, there has been a renaissance in the study of regional growth, spurred by new models, methods and data. We survey a range of modelling traditions, and some formal approaches to the ’hard problem’ of regional economics, namely the joint consideration of agglomeration and...

We study the interplay between transportation infrastructure, knowledge flows, and innovation. Exploiting historical data on planned portions of the interstate highway system, railroads, and exploration routes as sources of exogenous variation, we estimate the effect of U.S. interstate highways...

Using plant-level data for the Irish manufacturing sector over the period 1983-98, we study the coagglomeration of domestic plants and foreign multinationals in Ireland. To this end we make use of the index developed by Ellison and Glaeser (1997) and find coagglomeration to be important for a...

This paper presents a dynamic, two-region general equilibrium model in which inter-regional production and trade patterns are endogenously determined. Localized growth stems from geographical concentration of an industrial sector exhibiting permanent productivity increases. Geographical...

This Paper proposes a two-region model of endogenous growth, which is a natural combination of a core-periphery model a la Krugman and of a model of endogenous growth a la Grossman/Helpman/Romer. Specifically, we add to the core-periphery model an R&D sector that uses skilled labour to create...

This paper tries to assess how costly it would be for the CEECs to peg their exchange rates to the Euro. We use three types of criteria: institutional (the Maastricht criteria); some measure of real convergence; and the Optimal Currency Area criteria. The institutional criteria seem to be an...

Economic and monetary reunification in Germany has proved to be more expensive than previously thought - and not just for the Germans. If a `Mezzogiorno' problem of continuing fiscal transfers to the East and possible migration flows westwards are to be avoided, there must be convergence in...

Recent research demonstrates that imperfect information about returns to education distorts schooling investments. Questions remain about what information is missing in different settings and for whom such information is most critical. We conducted a field experiment to investigate whether Grade...

Empirical evidence suggests that sectoral export growth decreases exporters' survival probability, whereas non--exporters are unaffected. Models with firm heterogeneity in total factor productivity predict the opposite. To solve this puzzle, we develop a two--factor framework where firms differ...