This paper presents new evidence on the last concluded wave (2007-2013) of the EU cohesion policy. We depart from the broadly used GDP-growth approach and evaluate the impact of EU Structural Funds (SFs) on a battery of regional well-being indicators including economic, educational, health, and...

This paper analyses the impact of European Union (EU) funds on the performance of private firms. In particular, we examine a quasi-natural experiment consisting of a redrawing of administrative areas that expanded regional eligibility and led to a sudden increase in accessibility to EU grants...

We present a novel approach for analyzing the effects of EU cohesion policy on local economic activity. For all municipalities in the border area of the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland, we collect project-level data on EU funding in the period between 2007 and 2013. Using night light emission...

This paper evaluates the impact on employment probabilities of two training programs funded by the European Social Fund in the province of Bolzano, Italy. The programs were addressed to particularly vulnerable groups which were much less skilled and educated than the control group from the...

This paper examines whether workers living in rural areas are more likely to be self-employed, compared with those in urban areas. We provide evidence for 35 European countries, using the European Working Conditions Survey for the year 2015. We also study the time devoted to market work, and...

In 1998, the Good Friday Agreement concluded a period of violence in Northern Ireland yet the scars of the conflict remained prevalent in the political landscape. Rival communities remained divided, economic performance was poor and intercommunity tensions frequently manifested. In a bid to...

This paper uses regression discontinuity design to provide quasi-experimental estimates of the impact of a tax credit program targeted at rural areas in France, including corporate and payroll tax exemptions. We find no impact of the program on total employment or the number of businesses, and...

The productivity of non-farm enterprises in rural Africa may be associated with the productivity of other spatially proximate farm and non-farm enterprises. To test for the presence and significance of such spatial autocorrelation we use data from the geo-referenced 2011 Ethiopian Rural...

We are the first to provide a comparative empirical analysis of non-farm entrepreneurship in rural Africa, using the World Bank's unique LSMSISA dataset. This dataset covers six countries over the period 2005 to 2012. We find that rural enterprises tend to be small, informal household...