A Divided Europe? Regional Convergence and Neighbourhood Spillover Effects

While the stylised fact that, around the world, areas of rapid growth are geographically distinct from those with a poor growth performance, is easily accepted, little effort has been made in the empirical literature to incorporate location into the analysis of regional convergence in terms of economic growth. This paper provides a quantitative evaluation of the role of location in regional convergence, using the argument that growth in each region depends not only on its own characteristics but also on those of the regions that form the neighbourhood to which it belongs. Applying spatial econometrics it is found that, during the 1990s, opposing forces were exerting their influence across the EU: while regions did converge at a rate close to the 2 percent mark, neighbourhoods of regions diverged at an almost equal rate, leaving a net effect of convergence considerably smaller than the one previously reported in the literature.