This paper proposes a test statistic for the null hypothesis of panel stationarity that allows for the presence of multiple structural breaks. Two different specications are considered depending on the structural breaks affecting the individual effects and/or the time trend. The model is exible enough to allow the number of breaks and their position to differ across individuals. The test is shown to have an exact limit distribution with a good nite sample performance. Its application to a typical panel data set of real per capita GDP gives support to the trend stationarity of these series.Keywords: multiple structural changes, panel data, stationarity test, GDP per capita JEL codes: C12, C22 ResumAquest article proposa un estadístic de prova per contrastar la hipòtesi nul¢la d'estacionarietat en panell permetent la presència de múltiples canvis estructurals. Es consideren dues especicacions diferents en funció de si els canvis estructurals afecten els efectes individuals i/o la tendència temporal. El model és el sucientment exible com per permetre que tant el nombre de canvis com la seva posició puguin diferir entre els individus. El treball mostra que la distribució asimptòtica de l'estadístic és exacta. Experiments de simulació indiquen que el comportament del contrast en mides mostrals nites és bo. La seva aplicació a un panell típic de PIB per capita real proporciona evidència a favor de l'estacionarietat de les sèries.

Abstract. Deepening in the European Union (EU) integration process has enhanced the question of economic disparities at a regional level. The convergence process observed until the late seventies was exhausted onwards in coincidence with important changes in the economic activity. The paper shows how these factors would have provoked a regional differenciated response that, despite being important, would have not strengthened the decrease in regional inequalities. We use an alternative and (in our opinion) richer approach to the traditional convergence analysis, where the evolution of the whole regional distribution is what matters and not that of a representative economy. Moreover, when analysing inequalities among regional economies, the geographical space acquire an outstanding role. Hence, we apply spatial association tests and relate them to the convergence analysis.Resum. El avance en el proceso de integración ha aumentado el interés por la evolución de las disparidades económicas entre las regiones de la Unión Europea.El proceso de convergencia observado hasta finales de los setenta parece haberse agotado, coincidiendo con importantes cambios en el desarrollo de la actividad económica. El trabajo muestra como estos factores habrían provocado una respuesta regional diferenciada que, pese a ser importante, no habría contribuido a la disminución de las disparidades. En el trabajo se utiliza una aproximación alternativa a la empleada en el tradicional análisis de convergencia, donde lo que se considera es la evolución de la totalidad de la distribución y no unicamente aquélla de una economía representativa. Adicionalmente, cuando se estudian las disparidades entre economías regionales, el espacio adquiere un papel destacado.Por ello se aplican contrastes de asociación espacial y se relacionan con el análisis de convergencia. KEY WORDS: Convergence, EU regions, Distribution dynamics JEL classification: O40, O52, R12¡Error!Marcador no definido. IntroductionThe topic of regional economic convergence has generated considerable interest in recent years. In the case of the EU this interest has been enhanced by the deepening and widening in the integration process. It is well known that the question of regional economic disparities acquired a relevant status both from an economic and political point of view with the accession of Greece, Spain andPortugal. The performance of these economies since then, as a whole as well as that of each one of their regions, might be seen as an empirical evidence of the impact of the integration process. In this sense, the implementation of the Single European Market and the Economic and Monetary Union might play an important role in the evolution of regional disparities, even though a consensus of their effects is far from being achieved from a theoretical point of view (Abraham and Van Rompuy 1995). In any case, there is a general agreement in the existence of a decrease in regional inequalities (ie convergence) from the fifties to the seventies and a relative stagnation afterwards...

Recent contributions to the regional science literature have considered spatial effects in empirical growth specifications. In the case of spatial dependence, following theoretical arguments from new economic geography, and endogenous growth models, this phenomenon has been associated with the existence of externalities that cross regional borders. However, despite the general consensus that interactions or externalities are likely to be the major source of spatial dependence, they have been modelled in a rather ad hoc manner in most existing empirical studies. In contrast, we advocate basing the analysis on structural growth models which include externalities across economies, applying the appropriate spatial econometrics tools to test for their presence and estimate the magnitude of these externalities in the real world

This paper models externalities of production across regional economies. Under the assumption that knowledge diffuses without political or administrative barriers, we derive externalities that affect the steady state and the process of growth of each economy. The empirical counterpart of the reduced form equation summarizing the process of growth allows us to test for the presence of regional spillovers and to measure their magnitude. Our results for a sample of European regions show that spillovers are far from negligible, are robust to the consideration of variables within each region, and may cause nondecreasing returns at the spatial aggregate level. The paper also relates previous empirical evidence on spatial dependence in growth studies to the externalities modeled here.

This article pays special attention to the spatial dimension of public capital in regional economic growth. We assume that the effect of infrastructure on productivity depends on the type of public infrastructure in question: that is, local infrastructures enhance economic activity in the area where they are located, whereas transport and communication infrastructure may produce both benefits in the area where they are located and positive or negative spillovers to other regions. We also obtain conclusions on whether the link between growth and public capital depends on the amount of existing public capital stocks. Results for the Spanish provinces during a long time period suggest that the returns to local infrastructure are much greater than the returns to transportation, although in both cases, we observe strong decreasing returns to their accumulation. Finally, negative spillovers across regions in transport capital investments are obtained.

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract: This paper proposes a set of tools for analysing the regional distribution of unemployment. As we were interested in the characteristics of the distribution as a whole, results from a traditional regression analysis were complemented with those obtained by estimating its external shape before and after being conditioned to factors underlying regional unemployment. In addition, the paper specifically considers the spatial characteristics of the distribution, and the empirical model developed in order to determine explanatory factors includes spatial effects. This framework is applied to the study of the provincial distribution of unemployment rates in Spain. Results point to increasing spatial dependence in the distribution of regional unemployment rates, and a change in the factors causing regional differentials over the last decade. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. ABSTRACT. An interesting feature of the dynamics of unemployment in the EU economies is that while the aggregate unemployment rates move with the business cycle, its regional distribution seems to remain quite stable or tends to a sort of polarisation. This paper discusses different hypotheses that have been proposed to explain heterogeneity in the spatial distribution of unemployment, and performs an empirical analysis for the Spanish provinces. Terms of use: Documents inThe paper assesses the effects of skill and sectoral mismatch, and demographic factors in explaining spatial differences in unemployment rates. Although regional differences in sectoral specialisation and skills account for some of the dispersion in the distribution in the mid-eighties, they have no role in explaining the one today. In turn, demography became more important at the end of the period, though it is not able to explain completely the emergence of (at least) two clusters of regions with separate unemployment rates.