Absorptive Capacity and the Growth and Investment Effects of Regional Transfers: A Regression Discontinuity Design with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects

Sascha Becker, Peter Egger and Maximilian von Ehrlich

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2013, vol. 5, issue 4, 29-77

Abstract: Researchers often estimate average treatment effects of programs without investigating heterogeneity across units. Yet, individuals, firms, regions, or countries vary in their ability to utilize transfers. We analyze Objective 1 transfers of the EU to regions below a certain income level by way of a regression discontinuity design with systematically varying heterogeneous treatment effects. Only about 30 percent and 21 percent of the regions?those with sufficient human capital and good-enough institutions?are able to turn transfers into faster per capita income growth and per capita investment, respectively. In general, the variance of the treatment effect is much bigger than its mean.

JEL-codes: C21 F35 H23 H77 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
Note: DOI: 10.1257/pol.5.4.29
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (246)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/pol.5.4.29 (application/pdf)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/pol/data/2011-0143_data.zip (application/zip)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/pol/ds/november2013/2011-0143_ds.zip (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Absorptive Capacity and the Growth and Investment Effects of Regional Transfers: Regression Discontinuity Design with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects (2012)
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:aea:aejpol:v:5:y:2013:i:4:p:29-77

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy is currently edited by Matthew Shapiro

More articles in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().