Regional growth and inequality in the long-run: Europe, 1900-2015

Joan Rosés and Nikolaus Wolf

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: In this paper we discuss regional income growth and inequality based on a new set of long-run data. The data cover 173 European regions in 16 countries, from 1900 to 2015. These data allow us to compare regions over time, among each other, and to other parts of the world. After some brief notes on methodology, we describe the basic patterns in the data in terms of some key dimensions: variation in the density of population and economic activity, structural change with a declining role of agriculture, the rise and fall of industry, and the long rise of services. We show how 'fundamentals' of institutions and geography affected income levels over the twentieth century, and describe how regional growth after 1945 turned from convergence and adjustment to shocks to divergence. In the long run we observe a U-shaped pattern of regional convergence followed by divergence, not unlike recent observations on personal income and wealth distributions.

Keywords: regional inequality; Europe; long-run (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2021-04-05
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 5, April, 2021, 37(1), pp. 17 - 48. ISSN: 1460-2121

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/108624/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Regional growth and inequality in the long-run: Europe, 1900–2015 (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:108624

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