IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/adspcp/978-3-662-04788-0_3.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Regional Specialisation and Concentration in the EU

In: Regional Convergence in the European Union

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Hallet

    (Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs)

Abstract

Spatial issues have received renewed interest in economics following the development of the new economic geography. At the same time, there is a general concern that the process of European integration would lead to higher regional specialisation making regions more prone to adverse shocks and increasing adjustment costs in the case of a relocation of firms. In particular, the warning by Krugman (1993) to EMU participants to learn the “lessons of Massachusetts”, i.e. the need for a highly specialised region to have efficient adjustment mechanisms as a reaction to a shock to its leading sector when the nominal exchange rate is not available in a monetary union, has received major attention. He predicted that Europe, once it has completed a single market with a single currency, would soon have the same degree of regional specialisation as the US. While trade and specialisation is a basic theoretical concept in economics, which already Adam Smith identified as the main source of the wealth of nations, it is all the more surprising that the empirical evidence on spatial patterns of specialisation following the integration of economies is very scarce and inconclusive. Due to problems of data availability, this holds in particular for the regional, sub-national level in Europe. The objective of this paper is to provide some new empirical results on these issues.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Hallet, 2002. "Regional Specialisation and Concentration in the EU," Advances in Spatial Science, in: Juan R. Cuadrado-Roura & Martí Parellada (ed.), Regional Convergence in the European Union, chapter 3, pages 53-76, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:adspcp:978-3-662-04788-0_3
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-662-04788-0_3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Riccardo Pozzi & Rosalba Rombaldoni & Edgar J.Sanchez Carrera, 2018. "Inequalities, spatial disparities and agglomeration of economic activity in European regions," Working Papers 1805, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Department of Economics, Society & Politics - Scientific Committee - L. Stefanini & G. Travaglini, revised 2018.
    2. Berthold Norbert & Neumann Michael, 2004. "Ballungsprozesse im Standortwettbewerb der deutschen Bundesländer," ORDO. Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 55(1), pages 169-190, January.
    3. repec:rre:publsh:v:36:y:2006:i:3:p:324-61 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Krieger-Boden, Christiane, 2002. "European integration and the case for compensatory regional policy," Kiel Working Papers 1135, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    5. Eckey, Hans-Friedrich & Türck, Matthias, 2007. "Convergence of EU-Regions. A Literature Report," INVESTIGACIONES REGIONALES - Journal of REGIONAL RESEARCH, Asociación Española de Ciencia Regional, issue 10, pages 5-32.
    6. Karl Aiginger & Stephen W. Davies, 2004. "Industrial specialisation and geographic concentration: Two sides of the same coin? Not for the European Union," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 7, pages 231-248, November.
    7. Roberto Ezcurra & Pedro Pascual & Manuel Rapun, 2006. "Regional Specialization in the European Union," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(6), pages 601-616.
    8. Marelli, Enrico, 2004. "Evolution of employment structures and regional specialisation in the EU," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 35-59, March.
    9. Roberto Basile & Alessandro Girardi, 2009. "Specialization and risk sharing: evidence from European regions," ISAE Working Papers 122, ISTAT - Italian National Institute of Statistics - (Rome, ITALY).
    10. Berthold, Norbert & Neumann, Michael, 2004. "Ballungsprozesse im Standortwettbewerb: Was können die deutschen Bundesländer ausrichten?," Discussion Paper Series 71, Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, Chair of Economic Order and Social Policy.
    11. Frank Bickenbach & Eckhardt Bode, 2008. "Disproportionality Measures of Concentration, Specialization, and Localization," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 31(4), pages 359-388, October.
    12. Constantin POSTOIU, 2015. "FOREIGN TRADE AT REGIONAL LEVEL IN ROMANIA AS A TOOL IN BUILDING SMART SPECIALISATION STRATEGIES Abstract : In the context of the new EU Cohesion Policy and Europe 2020 strategy, regions are encourage," EcoForum, "Stefan cel Mare" University of Suceava, Romania, Faculty of Economics and Public Administration - Economy, Business Administration and Tourism Department., vol. 4(Special I), pages 1-3, august.
    13. Gabriela Carmen Pascariu & Ramona Frunza & Anca Stângaciu, 2010. "Romanian Foreign Trade - A Regional Perspective," CES Working Papers, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 2(1), pages 60-73, March.
    14. Benito , Juan Miguel & Ezcurra, Roberto, 2004. "Spatial disparities in the European Union: national and sectoral elements," INVESTIGACIONES REGIONALES - Journal of REGIONAL RESEARCH, Asociación Española de Ciencia Regional, issue 4, pages 75-98.

    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:spr:adspcp:978-3-662-04788-0_3. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.