The Regional Development Trap in Europe

Andreas Diemer, Simona Iammarino, Andrés Rodríguez-Pose and Michael Storper

No 2209, Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography

Abstract: The concept of regional development trap refers to regions that face significant structural challenges in retrieving past dynamism or improving prosperity for their residents. This article introduces and measures the concept of the regional development trap for regions in Europe. The concept draws inspiration from the middle-income trap in international development theory but widens it to shed light on traps in higher-income countries and at the regional scale. We propose indicators—involving the economic, productivity, and employment performance of regions relative to themselves in the immediate past, and to other regions in their respective countries and elsewhere in Europe—to identify regions either in a development trap or at significant near-term risk of falling into it. Regions facing development traps generate economic, social, and political risks at the national scale but also for Europe as a whole.

Keywords: development trap; middle-income; economic growth; employment; productivity; regions; Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-05, Revised 2022-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://econ.geo.uu.nl/peeg/peeg2209.pdf Version May 2022 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Regional Development Trap in Europe (2022)
Working Paper: The regional development trap in Europe (2022)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:egu:wpaper:2209

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).