Suchergebnisse

1. Introduction -- 2. Regional income disparities : theories and facts -- 3. Classifying European regions on the basis of specialization, knowledge and socio-economic groups -- 4. The evolution of income disparities in the enlarged EU and the role of specialization, knowledge and socio-economic groups -- 5. The evolution of regional disparities in labour productivity and employment rates in the EU : the role of specialization, knowledge and socio-economic groups -- 6. A closer look at the evolution of regional disparities in Central and Eastern Europe after the transition -- 7. Conclusions.

AbstractThe paper analyses the determinants and the evolution of income disparities across regions within Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) over 1991–2011. We add to the literature in different ways. First, we adapt the categories that Rodriguez‐Pose used for studying convergence among old EU members to CEECs regions. This allows us to assess the relevance of geo‐sectoral groups (urban areas, old industrialized areas and peripheral areas) for newcomer regions. Second, we introduce a new category, that of 'successful Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)‐based restructuring' in order to capture regions that, often through considerable FDI, manage to reconvert their old industrial base. We then analyze whether this group helps understand catching‐up/falling behind processes in CEECs. We test the relevance of these groups by means of both non‐parametric and spatial regression analyses. We find that they help explain the increase in within‐countries' regional disparities especially after the turn of the century.

AbstractThe paper analyses the determinants of regional disparities in per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and their evolution over time in the enlarged European Union (EU). With reference to the literature it groups EU regions on the basis of three different factors—specialisation, socio‐economic features, and innovation. It then analyses regional disparities in per capita GDP (EU‐relative and country‐relative) across groups over 2004–2011 using both non‐parametric tools and traditional regression analysis with spatial effects. The paper finds that EU‐wide convergence actually conceals growing divergence across old member regions and within new members. Coming to the factors that lie at the heart of regional disparities, country factors lose importance for newcomers but become more important for older members, notwithstanding longstanding integration. Socio‐economic factors and innovation instead become increasingly important for all areas, socio‐economic factors lying at the heart of within‐country differences and innovation more of those between regions. Finally, specialisation appears to have a lower explanatory power.

ABSTRACTThe paper contains a non‐parametric analysis of regional convergence in the enlarged EU over the period 1998–2005. It finds overall convergence but growing within country disparities, especially due to the behaviour of newcomer regions. It also finds strong (but falling) spatial correlation of per‐capita income. Starting from this evidence, the paper considers the role of socio‐economic features, specialisation patterns and geographical factors in explaining within countries disparities. Overall we find that partly specialisation but more evidently socio‐economic clusters have a good explanatory power while simple geographical factors do not explain within countries divergence. This does not mean that spatial factors are not important: rather it means that agglomeration alone cannot explain a complex and variegated pattern of growth where structural and socio‐economic factors appear to be playing an important and increasing role.

The purpose of this paper is to shed more light on the determinants of the number of bank lending relationships. In particular we look at the link between over‐leverage and the number of banking relationships for a sample of Italian manufacturing firms, distinguishing between firms with a main bank and firms without a main bank. The main result of the paper is that the number of banking relationships increases with over‐leverage only for firms without a main bank. We argue that this result is consistent with the view that, when banks perform transaction lending, firms can increase their debt capacity by increasing the number of creditors, promising ex ante up to the full amount of available assets to each one of the creditors.