Regional mobility in the European Union

Regional mobility in the spatial distribution of per capita income in the European Union is examined over the period 1977 to 1999. The methodology used to investigate this issue combines a series of measures taken from the literature devoted to the dynamic study of personal income distribution with a non-parametric analysis. The results show limited mobility in the distribution considered, and a decline in mobility over time. The empirical evidence presented indicates, moreover, that mobility patterns vary as a function of regional development levels. Additionally, the analysis carried out investigates the role played in explaining intra-distribution mobility by variables such as per capita income, population density, per capita expenditure in investment, market potential, and the share in total employment of agriculture, advanced services and non-market services.

Explaining the Distribution of Manufacturing Productivity in the EU Regions

Abstract: Regional inequalities in product per capita and labour productivity in the EU are large and persistent. Building on a model in which aggregate increas-ing returns is the result of the increase in the number of varieties of composite ser-vices, under competitive manufactures, we derive a simple and empirically tracta-ble reduced form linking manufacturing productivity growth to the growth of manufacturing output. This specification is used to simulate the equilibrium distri-bution of labour productivity in the EU regions, that is compared with "virtual" distributions obtained by equalizing, for instance, the amount of returns to scale and the stock of human capital across regions. This way, the impact of some growth determinants on the whole EU regional equilibrium distribution can be as-sessed

Productivity, convergence and policy: a study of OECD countries and industries

Productivity, Convergence, OECD, O33, O38, O47, O52, O57,