IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/liu/liucej/v4y2007i2p149-178.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Specialisation and Convergence in European Regions

Author

Listed:
  • Enrico Marelli

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to analyze specialization and convergence of European countries and regions, within the framework of integration in the EU. This is important not only for long-term real convergence processes, but also for a proper functioning of the monetary union (in the line of research on the OCA's criteria, asymmetry of shocks and synchronization of business cycles). The position of new member states is particularly delicate, also considering the forthcoming adoption of the euro by some of them. As indicated by the EU Treaty, economic growth should be balanced with economic and social cohesion that includes a careful consideration of regional disparities. Our empirical investigation focuses on the regions of EU25, further broken up into other relevant groupings (EU15, EMU, and the new members' EU10 group), over the period from 1980 (or 1990 for EU10) to 2005. This paper considers a rather fine regional disaggregation (NUTS-2 level), counting 250 regions. The analysis of different indices of specialisation point to a prevalent increase of homogeneity of sector structures across European regions, although in some cases (especially in the industrial sector and in some services) specialisation has increased. For convergence, a sigma convergence's analysis confirms a reduction of disparities, both at a country and regional level. However, a trade-off between fast national growth and internal distribution has emerged in the early stages of development, as in the case of new members. Moreover, beta convergence has also been established - regarding per capita income, employment and productivity - for almost all territorial aggregates (excluding the new members since 1999). The addition of structural variables, following a beta-conditional approach, indicates a positive role for services and a negative impact of agriculture. Finally, some preliminary results have been obtained by the innovative inclusion of specialisation indices within convergence regressions.

Suggested Citation

  • Enrico Marelli, 2007. "Specialisation and Convergence in European Regions," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 4(2), pages 149-178, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:liu:liucej:v:4:y:2007:i:2:p:149-178
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ejce.liuc.it/18242979200702/182429792007040203.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sergio Nardis & Alessandro Goglio & Marco Malgarini, 1996. "Regional specialization and shocks in Europe: Some evidence from regional data," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 132(2), pages 197-214, September.
    2. Frankel, Jeffrey A & Rose, Andrew K, 1998. "The Endogeneity of the Optimum Currency Area Criteria," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(449), pages 1009-1025, July.
    3. Fatas, Antonio, 1997. "EMU: Countries or regions? Lessons from the EMS experience," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-5), pages 743-751, April.
    4. Ben Gardiner & Ron Martin & Tyler Peter, 2004. "Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Growth across the European Regions," ERSA conference papers ersa04p333, European Regional Science Association.
    5. Combes, Pierre-Philippe & Overman, Henry, 2003. "The Spatial Distribution of Economic Activities in the EU," CEPR Discussion Papers 3999, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Roberto Basile & Sergio de Nardis & Alessandro Girardi, 2001. "Regional inequalities and cohesion policies in the european union," ISAE Working Papers 23, ISTAT - Italian National Institute of Statistics - (Rome, ITALY).
    7. Mike Artis & Hans-Martin Krolzig & Juan Toro, 2004. "The European business cycle," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(1), pages 1-44, January.
    8. Paul de Grauwe & Francesco Paolo Mongelli, 2005. "Endogeneities of Optimum Currency Areas: What brings Countries Sharing a Single Currency Closer together?," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 29, Departamento de Economia, Gestão e Engenharia Industrial, Universidade de Aveiro.
    9. Fidrmuc, Jarko & Korhonen, Iikka, 2006. "Meta-analysis of the business cycle correlation between the euro area and the CEECs," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 518-537, September.
    10. Juan R. Cuadrado-Roura, 2001. "Regional convergence in the European Union: From hypothesis to the actual trends," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 35(3), pages 333-356.
    11. Zsolt Darvas & György Szapáry, 2008. "Business Cycle Synchronization in the Enlarged EU," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 1-19, February.
    12. André Sapir & Marco Buti, 1998. "Economic policy in EMU," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/8078, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    13. Böwer, Uwe & Guillemineau, Catherine, 2006. "Determinants of business cycle synchronisation across euro area countries," Working Paper Series 587, European Central Bank.
    14. Domenico Giannone & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2005. "Trends and cycles in the Euro Area: how much heterogeneity and should we worry about it?," Macroeconomics 0511016, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Artis, Michael J & Zhang, Wenda, 1999. "Further Evidence on the International Business Cycle and the ERM: Is There a European Business Cycle?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 51(1), pages 120-132, January.
    16. Tito Boeri & Katherine Terrell, 2002. "Institutional Determinants of Labor Reallocation in Transition," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 51-76, Winter.
    17. Ansgar Belke & Jens Heine, 2006. "Specialisation patterns and the synchronicity of regional employment cycles in Europe," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 91-104, November.
    18. Ian Babetskii, 2005. "Trade integration and synchronization of shocks," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 13(1), pages 105-138, January.
    19. Buiter, Willem, 2004. "To Purgatory and Beyond: When and How Should the Accession Countries from Central and Eastern Europe Become Full Members of EMU?," CEPR Discussion Papers 4342, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Angeloni, Ignazio & Flad, Michael & Mongelli, Francesco Paolo, 2005. "Economic and monetary integration of New Member States - helping to chart the route," Occasional Paper Series 36, European Central Bank.
    21. Ignazio Angeloni & Michael Flad & Francesco Paolo Mongelli, 2005. "Economic and monetary integration of the new Member States - helping to chart the route," Occasional Paper Series 36, European Central Bank.
    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. Marcello Signorelli & Enrico Marelli, 2007. "Institutional change, regional features and aggregate performance in eight EU’s transition countries," Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia, Finanza e Statistica 37/2007, Università di Perugia, Dipartimento Economia.
    2. Crespo-Cuaresma, Jesús & Fernández-Amador, Octavio, 2013. "Business cycle convergence in EMU: A first look at the second moment," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 265-284.
    3. Stavros Degiannakis & David Duffy & George Filis, 2014. "Business Cycle Synchronization in EU: A Time-Varying Approach," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 61(4), pages 348-370, September.
    4. Marc-Alexandre Sénégas, 2010. "La théorie des zones monétaires optimales au regard de l'euro : Quels enseignements après dix années d'union économique et monétaire en Europe ?," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 120(2), pages 379-419.
    5. Degiannakis, Stavros & Duffy, David & Filis, George, 2013. "Time-varying Business Cycles Synchronisation in Europe," MPRA Paper 52925, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Hideaki Hirata & M. Ayhan Kose & Chris Otrok, "undated". "Regionalization vs. Globalization," Working Paper 164456, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    7. Gächter, Simon & Riedl, Alesandra & Ritzberger-Grünwald, Doris, 2013. "Business cycle convergence or decoupling? Economic adjustment in CESEE during the crisis," BOFIT Discussion Papers 3/2013, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    8. Ansgar Belke & Clemens Domnick & Daniel Gros, 2017. "Business Cycle Synchronization in the EMU: Core vs. Periphery," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 28(5), pages 863-892, November.
    9. Papageorgiou, Theofanis & Michaelides, Panayotis G. & Milios, John G., 2010. "Business cycles synchronization and clustering in Europe (1960-2009)," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 62(5), pages 419-470, September.
    10. Robert Dixon & David Shepherd, 2013. "Regional Dimensions of the Australian Business Cycle," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(2), pages 264-281, February.
    11. Gächter, Simon & Riedl, Alesandra & Ritzberger-Grünwald, Doris, 2013. "Business cycle convergence or decoupling? : Economic adjustment in CESEE during the crisis," BOFIT Discussion Papers 3/2013, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    12. António Afonso & Davide Furceri, 2007. "Business Cycle Synchronization and Insurance Mechanisms in the EU," Working Papers Department of Economics 2007/26, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    13. Svatopluk KAPOUNEK & Jitka POMĚNKOVÁ, 2013. "The endogeneity of optimum currency area criteria in the context of financial crisis: Evidence from the time-frequency domain analysis," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 59(9), pages 389-395.
    14. Jean-Marc Figuet & Nikolay Nenovsky, 2006. "Convergence and shocks in the road to EU: Empirical investigations for Bulgaria and Romania," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp810, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    15. Sofia Gouveia, 2014. "Business cycle correlation between the Euro area and the Balkan countries," International Journal of Business and Economic Sciences Applied Research (IJBESAR), International Hellenic University (IHU), Kavala Campus, Greece (formerly Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Institute of Technology - EMaTTech), vol. 7(1), pages 33-49, April.
    16. Jakob De Haan & Robert Inklaar & Richard Jong‐A‐Pin, 2008. "Will Business Cycles In The Euro Area Converge? A Critical Survey Of Empirical Research," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 234-273, April.
    17. Michal Bencik, 2011. "Business cycle synchronisation between the V4 countries and the euro area," Working and Discussion Papers WP 1/2011, Research Department, National Bank of Slovakia.
    18. Martin Gächter & Aleksandra Riedl & Doris Ritzberger-Grünwald, 2013. "Business cycle convergence or decoupling? Economic adjustment of CESEE countries during the crisis," Chapters, in: Ewald Nowotny & Peter Mooslechner & Doris Ritzberger-Grünwald (ed.), A New Model for Balanced Growth and Convergence, chapter 10, pages 147-169, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. repec:zbw:bofitp:2013_003 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Ageliki Anagnostou & Ioannis Panteladis & Maria Tsiapa, 2015. "Disentangling different patterns of business cycle synchronicity in the EU regions," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 615-641, August.
    21. Stefano Schiavo, 2008. "Financial Integration, GDP Correlation and the Endogeneity of Optimum Currency Areas," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(297), pages 168-189, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    regional economies; European regions; growth and convergence; specialisation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • P52 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems - - - Comparative Studies of Particular Economies
    • O52 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Europe

    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:liu:liucej:v:4:y:2007:i:2:p:149-178. 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: Laura Ballestra (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/liuccit.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.