Do EU structural funds promote regional growth? New evidence from various panel data approaches

EU Structural Funds and Regional Income Convergence A Sobering Experience

“…Mohl and Hagen (2010), among others, show that it is necessary to control for global spatial spillover effects since regional growth levels strongly depend on the performance of neighboring regions. Alecke et al (2013) additionally demonstrate that local spatial spillovers may also characterize transmission channels, and allowing for interaction effects between the policy variable and the controls might be essential for drawing a complete picture of regional policy effects.…”

“…29 We standardize the weighting matrix for estimation; therefore the values of wij are equal to 1/k or 0. Although this procedure is chosen in different studies (e.g., Ertur andKoch 2007 or Mohl andHagen 2010), it has the major shortcoming that region j can be flagged as neighbor for region i while it is not linked in the other direction. This can be the case when region i is located on a coast line or when the further neighbors of region j are smaller regions.…”

The Impact of Institutional Quality and Efficient Cohesion Investments on Economic Growth Evidence from Italian Regions

“…Since its introduction in 1975, the EU Cohesion policy has mainly aimed at promoting economic convergence, social cohesion, imbalance reduction, and sustainable and long-term growth among European regions [24]. The 2007-2013 Cohesion policy programme had three specific objectives: "Convergence", "Regional Competitiveness and Employment", and "Territorial Cooperation".…”

In Tandem for Cohesion? Synergies and Conflicts between Regional and Agricultural Policies of the European Union

“…Mohl and Hagen (2010) reviewed at least 15 other quantitative studies, which with similar approaches to those discussed above reached altogether conflicting conclusions on the impact of cohesion policies.…”