Structural funds are one of the regional policy instruments that are most intensively used in the promotion of regional convergence in between the member states of the European Union. There remains, however, many empirical and theoretical divergences in the literature as to their effectiveness...

This paper assesses the impact of structural funds on the manufacturing sector of 145 European regions in the context of a Verdoorn’s law for the period 1989-2004. Three main innovations are included. First, we pay attention to the nature of the cohesion objective under study. Second, the...

Econometric estimations of the impact of structural funds on the growth process of the European regions started 9 years ago. However, it is striking to realize that all previous estimations in this field are based on some form of the neoclassical growth model. This model is still widely used...

Convergence of EU regions is an often examined research question. However, there are no studies available which include in their analysis the New Member States from the former Eastern Bloc. We estimate several models of absolute convergence and of conditional convergence taking into account the...

We propose a semi-parametric spatial auto-covariance specification of the growth model to examine the growth behaviour of European regions in the period 1988-2000. This specification simultaneously takes account of the problems of non-linearities and spatial dependence. We obtain two main...

We investigate the sources of productivity convergence using panel data for the Spanish regions. As a framwork, we develop a simple descriptive growth model which allows for factor accumulation, technological diffusion and rate effects from human capital and which includes fixed regional effects...

The paper looks at the genesis of innovation in the EU regions in order to shed light on the link between innovative inputs (R&D and Human Capital) and the genesis of economically valuable knowledge. The "traditional" regional Knowledge Production Function (KPF) is innovatively developed in...

The aim of our analysis is the evaluation of the total and sectoral convergence of labour productivity between 182 regions of EU12 in the period 1991-2006. The selected sectors are agriculture, manufactory, market and non-market services. We adopt a β- and σ-convergence approach along with a...

This paper estimates the impact of structural funds on the convergence process between 145 European regions over 1989-1999. Since the majority of these funds finance transportation infrastructures, they induce spillover effects, industry relocation and do not necessarily succeed in reducing...

The aim of our analysis is the evaluation of the total and sectoral convergence of labour productivity between 182 regions of EU12 in the period 1991-2006. The selected sectors are agriculture, manufactory, market and non-market services. We adopt a β- and sígma-convergence approach along with...