One or Many Cohesion Policies of the European Union? On the Diverging Impacts of Cohesion Policy across Member States

Riccardo Crescenzi and Mara Giua

SERC Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Abstract: Do regions in all Member States (MSs) of the European Union (EU) benefit from Cohesion Policy? Are regional impacts persistently diversified across countries? In order to answer these questions this paper explores how the impact of the EU Cohesion Policy on growth and employment varies across countries. A spatial Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) makes it possible estimate distinct but fully comparable impacts for each individual MS both before the Great Recession and during recovery. The results show that Cohesion Policy has exerted a positive and significant EU-wide impact on both regional economic growth and employment. However, regional impacts are not evenly distributed across MSs. Large part of the regional growth bonus generated by Cohesion Policy is concentrated in Germany. Conversely, impacts on regional employment are confined to the United Kingdom. The picture for beneficiary regions in Southern European Member States is less rosy with positive impacts on employment in Italy until the Great Recession and on economic growth in the recovery period in Spain.

Keywords: Cohesion policy; European Union; regions; growth; employment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O18 R11 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec, nep-geo, nep-lab and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cep:sercdp:0230

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