IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa10p1231.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Structural funds and regional convergence in Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Silvia Loddo

Abstract

The lack of convergence across Italian Regions has been widely cited as an incontrovertible proof of failure of Cohesion policy. This paper aims to provide a twofold contribution to the debate on the effectiveness of these policies in Italy. Firstly, we provide an up-to-date view of convergence across Italian regions by focussing on the period covered by regional development policies carried out by EU. Poorer regions in Italy have indeed caught up with the richer regions over the period 1994-2004 and much of this convergence process has occurred towards region-specific steady states. Secondly, we consider Structural Funds as a conditioning variable in the convergence equation by using recently available data on expenditure implemented during the Second and the Third Planning Period. Our panel estimates point to a positive and significant impact of the Structural Funds on regional convergence in Italy over the period 1994-2004. When the Structural Funds are considered individually we find that the expenditure allocated by ERDF has medium term positive and significant returns while support to agriculture has short-term positive effects on growth which wane quickly. Finally, our results cast some doubt both on the (i) distributive efficiency of resources allocated by ESF and (ii) on the effectiveness of the intervention policies in support to education, Human capital and employment.

Suggested Citation

  • Silvia Loddo, 2011. "Structural funds and regional convergence in Italy," ERSA conference papers ersa10p1231, European Regional Science Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1231
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www-sre.wu.ac.at/ersa/ersaconfs/ersa10/ERSA2010finalpaper1231.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lapo Calamai, 2009. "The Link between Devolution and Regional Disparities: Evidence from the Italian Regions," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(5), pages 1129-1151, May.
    2. Daniele, Vittorio, 2009. "Regional convergence and public spending in Italy. Is there a correlation?," MPRA Paper 14334, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Forte, Francesco & Magazzino, Cosimo & Mantovani, Michela, 2010. "On the failure of European planning for less developed regions. The case of Calabria," MPRA Paper 25527, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. DANIELE, Vittorio, 2009. "Development Policy, Public Spending and Regional Convergence in Italy (1996-2007)," Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 9(2).
    5. Aiello, Francesco & Pupo, Valeria, 2012. "Structural funds and the economic divide in Italy," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 403-418.
    6. Torrisi, Gianpiero & Pike, Andy & Tomaney, John & Tselios, Vassilis, 2011. "(Re-)exploring the link between devolution and regional disparities in Italy," MPRA Paper 32212, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Daniele VITTORIO, 2009. "Public Spending And Regional Convergence In Italy," Journal of Applied Economic Sciences, Spiru Haret University, Faculty of Financial Management and Accounting Craiova, vol. 4(2(8)_Summ).
    8. Stefano Magrini, 2007. "Analysing Convergence through the Distribution Dynamics Approach: Why and how?," Working Papers 2007_13, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    9. Lukasz Pietak, 2021. "Structural Funds and Convergence in Poland," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 236(1), pages 3-37, March.
    10. Luca Simone Rizzo, 2013. "Politiche territoriali UE, sviluppo partecipato e cooperazione. Percorsi, orientamenti, prospettive," ECONOMIA E SOCIET? REGIONALE, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 0(1), pages 131-149.
    11. Aiello, Francesco & Pupo, Valeria, 2009. "Capacità di gestione, efficienza istituzionale e impatto dei Fondi Strutturali in Italia [The Impact of Structural Funds in Italy]," MPRA Paper 14429, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Maurizio Conti, 2009. "The Italian Productivity Decline: Evidence from Regional Data," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 68(3), pages 269-309, July.
    13. Francesco Aiello & Valeria Pupo, 2009. "L’Impatto Dei Fondi Strutturali In Italia," Working Papers 200901, Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania" - DESF.
    14. Valeria Pupo & Francesco Aiello, 2009. "L'impatto della politica regionale dell'Unione Europea. Uno studio sulle regioni italiane," Rivista italiana degli economisti, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 3, pages 421-454.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1231. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Gunther Maier (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ersa.org .

    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.