Observing regions, for instance in Europe, one may easily notice inequalities in the resources they devote to innovation activities and in the results they reach in terms of economic success. In this respect, it may be assumed at first glance that a hierarchy of regional environment could be...

This article introduces a social planner version of a model central to the New Economic Geography for explicitly answering whether the symmetric equilibrium outcome of the decentralized market economy is socially desirable. We find that savings incentives are too weak, resulting in an...

Rural areas still play a major role within the EU, as Europe is still a fairly rural continent. Moreover, EU rural areas are going through greater challenges and major transformations. After the Eastern enlargements of the EU (in 2004 and 2007), they are getting more and more heterogeneous, in...

Reducing disparities among regions within European countries is the aim of European and national structural policies. In particular, a European grant contributes to the German governmental program for equalizing regional unemployment. The goal is to bring it down to the national average by...