The determinants and dynamics of regional convergence in the EU
Theodoros Arvanitopoulos and
Nicholas Lazarou
No 2023-06, JRC Working Papers on Territorial Modelling and Analysis from Joint Research Centre
Abstract:
In this study, we employ the pairwise stochastic convergence approach to identify the pairs of NUTS2 regions for all 28 EU Member States that exhibit co-movement in their growth dynamics, over the period 1980-2018. We then use the observed convergence trajectories to assess the role of first nature geography and second nature geography, in causing economic growth convergence patterns. We find that western and northern parts of Europe have higher pairwise convergence (and lower intra-country convergence) rates than regions in East and Southeast Europe. We find strong evidence that first and second nature geography drive cluster-like convergence dynamics. Regions with common locational characteristics (metropolitan, coastal, islands, and mountainous) tend to converge to each other, while they diverge from dissimilar regions. Regardless of national borders, contiguity and accessibility are significant drivers of convergence. Congruence in sectoral specialisation results in divergence, that could be driven by competing economic interests within the common market. The opposite holds for dissimilarities in specialisation, which could be explained by complementarity in the production process. Overall, we find strong evidence for club convergence at the top of the EU. Bottom regions with low market dynamism and poor economic development, do not converge to each other.
Keywords: Stochastic convergence; economic geography; pairwise approach; EU Member States; NUTS2 regions; EU Cohesion Fund (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec, nep-geo and nep-ure
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC133733 (application/pdf)
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:ipt:termod:202306
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in JRC Working Papers on Territorial Modelling and Analysis from Joint Research Centre Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Publication Officer ().