Spatial concentration of economic activities is one of the most salient features of economic development. The almost parallel urge by policymakers to counteract such a trend through public polices is also striking. This is not only reserved to those countries, especially in Europe, which have a...

The EIB finances a large number of projects in support of EU policies including social and economic cohesion, that is to reduce regional disparities in income. Since 1995, the EIB Evaluation Department has looked at over 100 projects where the Bank has been involved, normally along the lines of...

In the last decade or so, growth has come to occupy an increasingly important place among the interests of macroeconomists, displacing to some extent their previous preoccupation with the business cycle. This change is largely due to two factors. The first one is the realisation that, in terms...

In a world of globalisation, it is tempting to foresee the 'death of distance' and, once the impediments to mobility have declined sufficiently, to wait for the predictions of the neo-classical theory of factor mobility to materialise. According to this theory, production factors respond to...