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Do EU structural funds promote regional employment? Evidence from dynamic panel data models

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  • Mohl, Philipp
  • Hagen, Tobias

Abstract

Despite its rather broad goal of promoting “economic, social and territorial cohesion”, the existing literature has mainly focused on investigating the Cohesion Policy’s growth effects. This ignores the fact that part of the EU expenditures is directly aimed at reducing disparities in the employment sector. Against this background, the paper analyses the impact of EU structural funds on employment drawing on a panel dataset of 130 European NUTS regions over the time period 1999-2007. Compared to previous studies we (i) explicitly take into account the unambiguous theoretical propositions by testing the conditional impact of structural funds on the educational attainment of the regional labour supply, (ii) use more precise measures of structural funds for an extended time horizon and (iii) examine the robustness of our results by comparing different dynamic panel econometric approaches to control for heteroscedasticity, serial and spatial correlation as well as for endogeneity. Our results indicate that high-skilled population in particular benefits from EU structural funds. JEL Classification: R11, R12, C23, J20

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  • Mohl, Philipp & Hagen, Tobias, 2011. "Do EU structural funds promote regional employment? Evidence from dynamic panel data models," Working Paper Series 1403, European Central Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20111403
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    2. Juan González Alegre, 2017. "The Efficiency of Active Labour Market Policies in the European Union: Does It Make Sense Increasing the Bill?," Acta Oeconomica, Akadémiai Kiadó, Hungary, vol. 67(3), pages 333-357, September.
    3. Vinko Muštra & Lena Malešević Perović & Silvia Golem, 2014. "Social attitudes and regional inequalities," Economy of region, Centre for Economic Security, Institute of Economics of Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, vol. 1(1), pages 66-73.
      • Mustra Vinko & Malesevic Perovic Lena & Golem Silvia, 2014. "Social attitudes and regional inequalities," Экономика региона, CyberLeninka;Федеральное государственное бюджетное учреждение науки «Институт экономики Уральского отделения Российской академии наук», issue 1, pages 66-73.
    4. Necmettin CELIK, 2017. "Tesvik Politikalarinin Etkinliginin Mekansal Perspektiften Degerlendirilmesi," Ege Academic Review, Ege University Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, vol. 17(1), pages 1-12.
    5. Kalina Durova, 2018. "The impact of European Union funds on the economies of the Central and Eastern European countries," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 1, pages 95-112.
    6. Julián Ramajo & José Manuel Cordero & Miguel Ángel Márquez, 2017. "European regional efficiency and geographical externalities: a spatial nonparametric frontier analysis," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 319-348, October.
    7. Iana Paliova & Mr. Tonny Lybek, 2014. "Bulgaria’s EU Funds Absorption: Maximizing the Potential!," IMF Working Papers 2014/021, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Carlos San Juan Mesonada & Carlos Sunyer Manteiga, 2021. "European Structural Funds and Resilient and Recovery Facility Governance," EconPol Working Paper 67, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    9. Destefanis, Sergio & Rehman, Naqeeb Ur, 2023. "Investment, innovation activities and employment across European regions," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 474-490.
    10. Ignacio Sacristán López-Bravo & Carlos San Juan Mesonada, 2022. "Effects of Policy Mix on European Regional Convergence," EconPol Working Paper 73, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    dynamic panel models; EU structural funds; regional employment effects; spatial panel econometrics;
    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
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General

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