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Concentrated versus diffused growth assets: agglomeration economies and regional cohesion

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  • Roberta Capello
  • Silvia Cerisola

Abstract

The interest toward the supposed trade‐off between efficiency and equity has strongly come back to the fore within the European Union (EU) after the 2008 economic crisis. The worsening of spatial economic imbalances, in fact, opened again the debate whether the European institutions should focus their budget allocations on core areas or on peripheral areas of less developed countries, following concentrated or spatially distributed normative actions. This paper addresses the question by applying an original method to assess the relative importance of urban efficiency with respect to spatially distributed resource endowments in affecting regional inequality. An innovative two‐step procedure is applied: that first estimates a regional production function and then makes use of its output through a simulation to assess efficiency versus spatially even distribution of resources on the improvement of regional cohesion. The results show that urban efficiency gains play a relatively minor role in affecting regional disparities if compared with a spatially even distribution of production factors.

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  • Roberta Capello & Silvia Cerisola, 2020. "Concentrated versus diffused growth assets: agglomeration economies and regional cohesion," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(4), pages 1440-1453, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:growch:v:51:y:2020:i:4:p:1440-1453
    DOI: 10.1111/grow.12419
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    2. Silvia Cerisola & Elisa Panzera, 2021. "Cultural and Creative Cities and Regional Economic Efficiency: Context Conditions as Catalyzers of Cultural Vibrancy and Creative Economy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-23, June.
    3. Alma Mačiulytė-Šniukienė & Mindaugas Butkus & Renata Macaitienė & Vida Davidavičienė, 2022. "Infrastructure and EU Regional Convergence: What Policy Implications Does Non-Linearity Bring?," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-22, December.

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