Spatial club dynamics in European regions

Davide Fiaschi, Lisa Gianmoena and Angela Parenti ()

Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2018, vol. 72, issue C, 115-130

Abstract: This paper studies the spatial agglomeration dynamics of a sample of 224 European regions in the period 1991–2012 by a dynamic extension of the Moran scatterplot, consisting in a nonparametric estimate of the joint dynamics of GDP per worker and its spatial lag. We find evidence that the twin-peaked distribution of GDP per worker in 2012 is the result of the existence of three spatial clubs: the first mainly populated by regions belonging to the former Eastern Bloc countries, the second by regions of the Southern Mediterranean countries (Portugal, Italy, and Spain) and the third by regions of other EU countries (notably Germany, France, UK and Northern European countries). Spatial externalities appears to be mainly driven by geographical, technological and social proximities, and only marginally by institutional proximities. Local spatial dependence is a pervasive phenomenon, and only the low-GDP per worker regions with similar neighbours seem to be immune. The 30-year ahead forecast of GDP per worker distribution suggests a weak convergence among the three clubs and a persistent spatial agglomeration in the future.

Keywords: Exploratory data analysis; Polarization; Random vector field; Spatial dependence; Spatial distribution dynamics; Knowledge spillovers; Moran scatterplot (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 O51 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166046216302678
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:eee:regeco:v:72:y:2018:i:c:p:115-130

DOI: 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2017.04.002

Access Statistics for this article

Regional Science and Urban Economics is currently edited by D.P McMillen and Y. Zenou

More articles in Regional Science and Urban Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().