IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sec/cnstan/0374.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Regional Inequality and Convergence in Europe, 1995-2005

Author

Listed:
  • Arne Melchior

Abstract

The paper presents new results on within-country regional inequality in per capita income for 36 countries during 1995-2005; focusing on Europe but with some non-European countries included for comparison. In 23 of the 36 countries there was a significant increase in regional inequality during the period, and in only three cases there was a reduction. Regional inequality increased in all countries of Central and Eastern Europe, while for most Western European countries there was little change. For the EU-27 as a whole, there was a modest increase in within-country regional inequality, but convergence across countries. The latter effect was quantitatively more important, so on the whole there was income convergence in the EU-27, especially after 2000. Regional inequality is particularly important for some large middle-income countries such as China, Russia and Mexico. In such countries there may however be considerable price differences across regions, and the use of common price deflators for the whole country may lead to a biased assessment of regional inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Arne Melchior, 2008. "Regional Inequality and Convergence in Europe, 1995-2005," CASE Network Studies and Analyses 0374, CASE-Center for Social and Economic Research.
  • Handle: RePEc:sec:cnstan:0374
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://case-research.eu/upload/publikacja_plik/22884265_sa374.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ben-David, Dan, 1996. "Trade and convergence among countries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-4), pages 279-298, May.
    2. Cowell, F.A., 2000. "Measurement of inequality," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 87-166, Elsevier.
    3. Combes, Pierre-Philippe & Overman, Henry G., 2004. "The spatial distribution of economic activities in the European Union," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 64, pages 2845-2909, Elsevier.
    4. Aadne Cappelen & Jan Fagerberg & Bart Verspagen, 1999. "Lack of regional convergence," Working Papers Archives 1999001, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.
    5. Jan Fagerberg & Paolo Guerrieri & Bart Verspagen (ed.), 1999. "The Economic Challenge for Europe," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1821.
    6. repec:zbw:bofitp:2006_009 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Jan Fagerberg, 1999. "The Economic Challenge for Europe: Adapting to Innovation-Based Growth," Working Papers 2, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.
    8. Andrea Brandolini & Anthony B. Atkinson, 2001. "Promise and Pitfalls in the Use of "Secondary" Data-Sets: Income Inequality in OECD Countries As a Case Study," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(3), pages 771-799, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arne Melchior, 2009. "East-West Integration and the Economic Geography of Europe," CASE Network Studies and Analyses 0379, CASE-Center for Social and Economic Research.
    2. Alessandro STERLACCHINI, 2006. "Innovation, Knowledge and Regional Economic Performances: Regularities and Differences in the EU," Working Papers 260, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    3. Venera Timiryanova & Dina Krasnoselskaya & Irina Lakman & Denis Popov, 2021. "Inter- and Intra-Regional Disparities in Russia: Factors of Uneven Economic Growth," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-31, December.
    4. Dibyendu Maiti & Sugata Marjit, 2009. "Regional Openness, Income Growth And Disparity Across Major Indian States During 1980-2004," Development Economics Working Papers 22927, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    5. Aadne Cappelen & Fulvio Castellacci & Jan Fagerberg & Bart Verspagen, 2003. "The Impact of EU Regional Support on Growth and Convergence in the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(4), pages 621-644, September.
    6. Alessandro STERLACCHINI & Francesco VENTURINI, 2006. "Is Europe becoming a knowledge-driven economy? Evidence from EU developed regions," Working Papers 253, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    7. Horst Hanusch & Markus Balzat, 2004. "A new era in the dynamics of European integration?," Discussion Paper Series 261, Universitaet Augsburg, Institute for Economics.
    8. Lydia Greunz, 2001. "European regional growth, technology gap and R&D efforts," ERSA conference papers ersa01p92, European Regional Science Association.
    9. Maurseth, Per Botolf, 2001. "Convergence, geography and technology," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 247-276, September.
    10. Castellacci, Fulvio, 2008. "Innovation and the competitiveness of industries: comparing the mainstream and the evolutionary approaches," MPRA Paper 27523, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Dibyendu Maiti & Sugata Marjit, 2015. "Regional Openness, Income Growth and Disparity during 1980–2009," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 16(1), pages 145-166, March.
    12. Sterlacchini, Alessandro, 2008. "R&D, higher education and regional growth: Uneven linkages among European regions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(6-7), pages 1096-1107, July.
    13. Donata Favaro & Eniel Ninka & Margherita Turvani, 2018. "Human capital, technology intensity, and growth in a regional context," Argomenti, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Department of Economics, Society & Politics, vol. 9(9), pages 1-22, January-A.
    14. Nyikos, Györgyi, 2013. "The Impact of Developments Implemented from Public Finances, with Special Regard to EU Cohesion Policy," Public Finance Quarterly, Corvinus University of Budapest, vol. 58(2), pages 163-183.
    15. Zisiadou, Argyro & Metaxas, Theodore, 2014. "The Mediterranean countries of European Union and their progress from 1980 to 2012: A comparative analysis," MPRA Paper 55029, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Duarte Santos, António & Ribeiro, Sandra & Castela, Guilherme & Tavares Da Silva, Nelson, 2017. "The Dynamics between Economic Growth and Living Standards in EU Countries: A STATICO Approach for the Period 2006-2014/La dinámica entre el crecimiento económico y la calidad de vida en los países de ," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 35, pages 629-652, Agosto.
    17. Brian Ardy & Iain Begg & Waltraud Schelkle & Francisco Torres, 2002. "How will EMU affect cohesion?," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 37(6), pages 300-314, November.
    18. Michele Capriati & Marialuisa Divella, 2017. "Why growth rates differ? Path of innovation in Italian provinces," Working Papers 1702, c.MET-05 - Centro Interuniversitario di Economia Applicata alle Politiche per L'industria, lo Sviluppo locale e l'Internazionalizzazione.
    19. Francois, Joseph & Rojas-Romagosa, Hugo, 2005. "The Construction and Interpretation of Combined Cross-Section and Time-Series Inequality Datasets," CEPR Discussion Papers 5214, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Erik S. Reinert, 2006. "European Integration, Innovations and Uneven Economic Growth: Challenges and Problems of EU 2005," The Other Canon Foundation and Tallinn University of Technology Working Papers in Technology Governance and Economic Dynamics 05, TUT Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Income distribution; regional inequality; economic growth and convergence; European integration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sec:cnstan:0374. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Anna Budzynska (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/caseepl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.