Agriculture and structural change: economic convergence among European regions

Economic and agricultural convergence across the EU regions has long attracted the attention of economists, and even more so over the last decade, following upon EU enlargement. Empirical contributions have referred explicitly or implicitly to the Solow model of economic growth estimating absolute and conditional -convergence. The prevailing neoclassical and sectoral approach is not suitable to address the implications of structural change, understanding of which is crucial within the current process of significant expansion of the service industry . Given this background, the aim of the paper is to gain an understanding of the scale and evolution of this change, how it has affected aggregate economic convergence and whether the agricultural sector has influenced the process despite its small and decreasing contribution to total Gdp.