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The aim of the paper is to analyse how the regional convergence, polarization and mobility have evolved in the EU from 1980 onwards. Using both simple and weighted indicators, the paper not only shows that all these three processes have been going on but that there are no sings of polarization and that the mobility degree (taken into account the whole period) is quite high. At the same time, the paper shows that the rate of convergence and the degree of mobility have declined, rising doubts about what may happen in the near future.

Abstract
The Danish Realm or Rigsfællesskab is a decentralised state in which the Faroe Islands and Greenland each count with a home-rule, holding the executive and legislative power over transferred matters. The paper discusses several issues concerning this decentralised legal framework and its functioning. In spite of what is stated in the home-rule arrangements about equality between parties, there is a dominant position of Danish authorities and Danish law. 'Danish central authorities' (Rigsmyndigheder) do not exist strictly speaking since the Danish authorities act as authorities for both Denmark proper and the Danish Realm. The mechanism for solving conflicts of competences is also questioned as non-functional, potentially reinforcing inequality and uncertainty. A territorial limit to Greenlandic/Faroese laws is of little use when the criterion for application of the laws is personal, not territorial. Finally, it is argued that the bilateral nature of the home-rule arrangements is not suitable for a three-part decentralised state in which all involved laws are lex fori.

The Great Recession of the late 2000s has brought to the fore, once again, the relevance of the relationship between output performance and labour market developments all over the world. This paper analyses the validity of Okun?s law in Spain by using regional data from 2000 to 2014, which roughly encompasses a complete business cycle. By estimating a Spatial Panel Durbin Model, the results not only show that a robust, inverse relationship between unemployment and output holds for Spain but also the existence of regional spillovers (indirect effects). In addition, they reveal that there are no time asymmetries between the expansion and recession phases of the business cycle and that human capital, the share of the construction sector, and the share of temporary workers are key factors in explaining unemployment changes. From a policy perspective, our findings support the idea of implementing region-specific policies, since indirect effects are less relevant than direct ones. In any case, national policies would also be effective. These policies, whatever their scope, should be mainly supply-side oriented in expansions (largely labour market policies) and demand-side focused in contractions.

The reduction of EU regional disparities in development levels is a key goal in the European Commission's policy agenda, but there are at least two debatable points that have captured the attention of academics and policy-makers: how to measure disparities between regions and the practical meaning of the word development. This paper attempts to contribute to this debate by shedding some light on these two points. First, as different measures have been proposed to evaluate the evolution of (regional) disparities, the report attempts to verify whether all of them roughly convey similar information. Second, given that different (single and composite) indicators, other than the traditional per capita GDP, have been proposed to represent the term development, the paper wants to see whether the conclusions drawn from the use of these single and composite indicators are generally similar to those from the per capita GDP. Regarding inequality measures, the results tended to show that all of them convey more or less the same information, namely, a common time pattern leading to a significant reduction of regional disparities in EU27 during the period 1995-2007. With respect to the development indicators, the results tend to support the conclusion that regional variations in development, whatever indicator is employed, are closely related to variations in per capita GDP. ; La reducción de disparidades regionales en la UE constituye uno de los objetivos principales de la agenda política de la Comisión Europea. Al respecto, sin embargo, hay cuando menos dos cuestiones básicas que suscitan un amplio debate entre académicos y dirigentes políticos: cómo medir las disparidades entre regiones y cuál es el significado del término desarrollo. Este trabajo trata de arrojar algo de luz sobre estas cuestiones. Primero, y dado que se han propuesto diferentes medidas para calibrar la magnitud de las disparidades, el estudio trata de averiguar si todas ellas conducen, o no, a similares resultados. Segundo, considerando que diferentes ...

The reduction of EU regional disparities in development levels is a key goal in the European Commission's policy agenda, but there are at least two debatable points that have captured the attention of academics and policymakers: how to measure disparities between regions and the practical meaning of the word development. This paper attempts to contribute to this debate by shedding some light on these two points. First, as different measures have been proposed to evaluate the evolution of (regional) disparities, the report attempts to verify whether all of them roughly convey similar information. Second, given that different (single and composite) indicators, other than the traditional per capita GDP, have been proposed to represent the term development, the paper wants to see whether the conclusions drawn from the use of these single and composite indicators are generally similar to those from the per capita GDP. Regarding inequality measures, the results tended to show that all of them convey more or less the same information, namely, a common time pattern leading to a significant reduction of regional disparities in EU27 during the period 1995-2007. With respect to the development indicators, the results tend to support the conclusion that regional variations in development, whatever indicator is employed, are closely related to variations in per capita GDP. ; La reducción de disparidades regionales en la UE constituye uno de los objetivos principales de la agenda política de la Comisión Europea. Al respecto, sin embargo, hay cuando menos dos cuestiones básicas que suscitan un amplio debate entre académicos y dirigentes políticos: cómo medir las disparidades entre regiones y cuál es el significado del término desarrollo. Este trabajo trata de arrojar algo de luz sobre estas cuestiones. Primero, y dado que se han propuesto diferentes medidas para calibrar la magnitud de las disparidades, el estudio trata de averiguar si todas ellas conducen, o no, a similares resultados. Segundo, considerando que diferentes indicadores (tanto simples como compuestos), distintos al tradicional PIB per capita, han sido sugeridos para determinar el grado de desarrollo de una región, este trabajo estudia si las conclusiones obtenidas a partir de todos ellos son, en esencia similares a las obtenidas con el PIB per capita. Las conclusiones del estudio muestran que, con respecto a las medidas de desigualdad, no importa cual se utilice ya que todas ellas conducen a similares resultados: una reducción de las disparidades regionales en la UE27 durante el periodo 1995-2007. En lo que se refiere a los indicadores de desarrollo, los resultados apoyan la idea de que las variaciones en el grado de desarrollo, sea cual sea el indicador utilizado para representar el mismo, se encuentran estrechamente correlacionadas con las variaciones en el PIB per cápita.