The regional division of Greece and the functional economic areas estimated from the 2011 commuting patterns

Written as the statistical institutes of the EU member-states discuss the development of a common technique for delineating functional economic areas (FEAs) after people's commuting patterns, the paper expresses concern over the imposition of qualifications that distort the economic reality on the ground, and over the use of asymmetric thresholds as they are bound to produce formations with different labor-market-related diffusion levels compared to the rest. To illustrate with in example, it algorithmically groups localities and delineates Greece's FEAs, entirely on the basis of people's travel-to-work flows at four different in- and out-commuting thresholds; and finds that unless neat shapes, equivalent sizes or other features are imposed by some assumption, they are not borne out by the situation on the ground. It also estimates the country's spatial fragmentation on the basis of the recovered formations; and compares the shapes of these formations to the regional/subregional division of Greece. To the extent the two grids diverge, there is room for better targeted policy interventions. On the whole, the paper advances our understanding regarding the diffusion of labour marker phenomena and interventions across the terrain in a crisis-hit country of the EU South, thus contributing to the analysis and formulation of relevant policies.