Does R&D Expenditure Boost Economic Growth in Lagging Regions?

Viviana Celli (), Augusto Cerqua () and Guido Pellegrini
Additional contact information
Viviana Celli: Sapienza University of Rome
Augusto Cerqua: Sapienza University of Rome

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2024, vol. 173, issue 1, No 10, 249-268

Abstract: Abstract We assess the impact of the EU Regional Policy on regional economic growth by applying a new evaluation strategy, which integrates mediation analysis with a quasi-experimental framework. Using the R&D expenditure as an indicator of innovation capability, we evaluate how much of the total effect of the EU Regional Policy is due to R&D in the poorest EU regions. Consistently with the previous literature, we found a positive impact of the overall policy on economic growth, but, among the convergence regions, those investing a higher proportion of funds in R&D have the same convergence rate as regions investing more in other priorities. These findings confirm that the EU Regional Policy played an important role in the economic recovery of the poorest regions in the aftermath of the Great Recession. However, focusing resources on R&D does not seem to provide additional economic benefits, at least in the short run.

Keywords: R&D indicator; Territorial competitiveness; Economic growth; EU Regional Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H25 O31 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-021-02786-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:soinre:v:173:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-021-02786-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-021-02786-5

Access Statistics for this article

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement is currently edited by Filomena Maggino

More articles in Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().