IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/jau/wpaper/2026-05.html

Multilevel Quality of Government and eco-productivity convergence in Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Marc Aliana

    (Department of Finance and Accounting, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain)

  • Maria Teresa Balaguer-Coll

    (Department of Finance and Accounting, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain)

  • Diego Prior

    (Department of Business, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain)

  • Emili Tortosa-Ausina

    (IVIE, Valencia and IIDL and Department of Economics, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain)

Abstract

This paper examines eco-productivity convergence across European Union regions while explicitly incorporating institutional quality within a multilevel governance framework. Using a panel of 216 NUTS-2 regions over the period 2010–2023, we analyse whether regions converge in their ability to generate economic output while limiting environmental pressures, and how this process is shaped by both national and regional Quality of Government (QoG). Ecoproductivity is measured using a nonparametric frontier approach based on Data Envelopment Analysis, with labour and capital as inputs, GDP as a desirable output, and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, transformed into an outputoriented ‘GHG savings’ indicator. The results show that average eco-productivity levels are around 8% higher when QoG is accounted for, cross-regional dispersion is considerably lower, and β-convergence is consistently stronger and statistically significant across all subperiods. Overall, eco-productivity convergence is associated with QoG, suggesting that sustainable regional catch-up is more likely where green investment is matched by improvements in institutional quality.

Suggested Citation

  • Marc Aliana & Maria Teresa Balaguer-Coll & Diego Prior & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2026. "Multilevel Quality of Government and eco-productivity convergence in Europe," Working Papers 2026/05, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    • Handle: RePEc:jau:wpaper:2026/05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.doctreballeco.uji.es/wpficheros/Aliana_et_al_05_2026.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose & Min Zhang, 2019. "Government institutions and the dynamics of urban growth in China," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(4), pages 633-668, September.
    2. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Roberto Ezcurra, 2011. "Is fiscal decentralization harmful for economic growth? Evidence from the OECD countries," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(4), pages 619-643, July.
    3. Robert M. Solow, 1956. "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 70(1), pages 65-94.
    4. Javier Barbero & Martin Christensen & Andrea Conte & Patrizio Lecca & Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose & Simone Salotti, 2023. "Improving Government Quality in the Regions of the EU and its System‐Wide Benefits for Cohesion Policy," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(1), pages 38-57, January.
    5. Dani Rodrik & Arvind Subramanian & Francesco Trebbi, 2004. "Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions Over Geography and Integration in Economic Development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 131-165, June.
    6. Léopold Simar & Paul W. Wilson, 2020. "Hypothesis testing in nonparametric models of production using multiple sample splits," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 287-303, June.
    7. George Halkos & Nickolaos Tzeremes, 2014. "Measuring the effect of Kyoto protocol agreement on countries’ environmental efficiency in CO 2 emissions: an application of conditional full frontiers," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 367-382, June.
    8. Andr�s Rodr�guez-Pose & Enrique Garcilazo, 2015. "Quality of Government and the Returns of Investment: Examining the Impact of Cohesion Expenditure in European Regions," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(8), pages 1274-1290, August.
    9. Kortelainen, Mika, 2008. "Dynamic environmental performance analysis: A Malmquist index approach," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(4), pages 701-715, February.
    10. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Roberto Ganau, 2022. "Institutions and the productivity challenge for European regions," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 1-25.
    11. Becker, Sascha O. & Egger, Peter H. & von Ehrlich, Maximilian, 2010. "Going NUTS: The effect of EU Structural Funds on regional performance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 578-590, October.
    12. Qi Li & Jeffrey Scott Racine, 2006. "Density Estimation, from Nonparametric Econometrics: Theory and Practice," Introductory Chapters, in: Nonparametric Econometrics: Theory and Practice, Princeton University Press.
    13. Daraio, Cinzia & Simar, Leopold & Wilson, Paul, 2018. "Central limit theorems for conditional efficiency measures and tests of the ‘separability’ condition in non-parametric, two-stage models of production," LIDAM Reprints ISBA 2018023, Université catholique de Louvain, Institute of Statistics, Biostatistics and Actuarial Sciences (ISBA).
    14. Maria Teresa Balaguer‐Coll & Isabel Narbón‐Perpiñá & Jesús Peiró‐Palomino & Emili Tortosa‐Ausina, 2022. "Quality of government and economic growth at the municipal level: Evidence from Spain," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(1), pages 96-124, January.
    15. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    16. Efendic, Adnan & Pugh, Geoff & Adnett, Nick, 2011. "Institutions and economic performance: A meta-regression analysis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 586-599, September.
    17. Davide Fiaschi & Andrea Mario Lavezzi & Angela Parenti, 2018. "Does EU cohesion policy work? Theory and evidence," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 386-423, March.
    18. Riccardo Crescenzi & Mara Giua, 2016. "The EU Cohesion Policy in context: Does a bottom-up approach work in all regions?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(11), pages 2340-2357, November.
    19. Cinzia Daraio & Léopold Simar, 2007. "Conditional nonparametric frontier models for convex and nonconvex technologies: a unifying approach," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 13-32, October.
    20. Cinzia Daraio & Léopold Simar & Paul W. Wilson, 2018. "Central limit theorems for conditional efficiency measures and tests of the ‘separability’ condition in non‐parametric, two‐stage models of production," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 21(2), pages 170-191, June.
    21. Nicholas Charron & Lewis Dijkstra & Victor Lapuente, 2015. "Erratum to: Mapping the Regional Divide in Europe: A Measure for Assessing Quality of Government in 206 European Regions," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 124(3), pages 1059-1059, December.
    22. George Halkos & Aksel Sundström & Nickolaos Tzeremes, 2015. "Regional environmental performance and governance quality: a nonparametric analysis," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 17(4), pages 621-644, October.
    23. George Halkos & George Papageorgiou, 2016. "Spatial environmental efficiency indicators in regional waste generation: a nonparametric approach," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 59(1), pages 62-78, January.
    24. Álvarez, Inmaculada C. & Barbero, Javier & Orea, Luis & Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés, 2026. "How institutions shape the economic returns to investment in European regions?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    25. Simona Iammarino & Andrés Rodriguez-Pose & Michael Storper, 2019. "Regional inequality in Europe: evidence, theory and policy implications," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(2), pages 273-298.
    26. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David N. Weil, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 407-437.
    27. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Marco Di Cataldo, 2015. "Quality of government and innovative performance in the regions of Europe," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(4), pages 673-706.
    28. Cinzia Daraio & Léopold Simar, 2005. "Introducing Environmental Variables in Nonparametric Frontier Models: a Probabilistic Approach," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 93-121, September.
    29. R. D. Banker & A. Charnes & W. W. Cooper, 1984. "Some Models for Estimating Technical and Scale Inefficiencies in Data Envelopment Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(9), pages 1078-1092, September.
    30. Qi Li & Jeffrey Scott Racine, 2006. "Nonparametric Econometrics: Theory and Practice," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 8355, December.
    31. Mariam Camarero & Juana Castillo & Andrés Picazo-Tadeo & Cecilio Tamarit, 2013. "Eco-Efficiency and Convergence in OECD Countries," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 55(1), pages 87-106, May.
    32. Runar Brännlund & Amin Karimu, 2018. "Convergence in global environmental performance: assessing heterogeneity," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 20(3), pages 503-526, July.
    33. Eichengreen, Barry, 1994. "Institutional prerequisites for economic growth: Europe after World War II," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(3-4), pages 883-890, April.
    34. Seiford, Lawrence M. & Zhu, Joe, 2002. "Modeling undesirable factors in efficiency evaluation," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 16-20, October.
    35. Nicholas Charron & Lewis Dijkstra & Victor Lapuente, 2014. "Regional Governance Matters: Quality of Government within European Union Member States," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(1), pages 68-90, January.
    36. Cazals, Catherine & Florens, Jean-Pierre & Simar, Leopold, 2002. "Nonparametric frontier estimation: a robust approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 1-25, January.
    37. Ugo Fratesi & Giovanni Perucca, 2018. "Territorial capital and the resilience of European regions," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 60(2), pages 241-264, March.
    38. Zhongsheng Hua & Yiwen Bian, 2007. "DEA with Undesirable Factors," Springer Books, in: Joe Zhu & Wade D. Cook (ed.), Modeling Data Irregularities and Structural Complexities in Data Envelopment Analysis, chapter 0, pages 103-121, Springer.
    39. Halkos, George E. & Tzeremes, Nickolaos G., 2013. "Economic growth and environmental efficiency: Evidence from US regions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(1), pages 48-52.
    40. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James A., 2005. "Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 385-472, Elsevier.
    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. Daniel Aparicio-Pérez & Maria Teresa Balaguer-Coll & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2023. "On the relative contributions of national and regional institutions to economic development," Working Papers 2023/01, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    2. Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose, 2020. "Institutions and the fortunes of territories," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(3), pages 371-386, June.
    3. Marc Aliana & Diego Prior & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2024. "Assessing the impact of environmental factors on emergency healthcare quality: Implications for budget allocation," Working Papers 2024/04, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    4. Maria Teresa Balaguer‐Coll & Isabel Narbón‐Perpiñá & Jesús Peiró‐Palomino & Emili Tortosa‐Ausina, 2022. "Quality of government and economic growth at the municipal level: Evidence from Spain," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(1), pages 96-124, January.
    5. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Tobias Ketterer, 2020. "Institutional change and the development of lagging regions in Europe," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(7), pages 974-986, July.
    6. Cordero Ferrera, Jose Manuel & Alonso Morán, Edurne & Nuño Solís, Roberto & Orueta, Juan F. & Souto Arce, Regina, 2013. "Efficiency assessment of primary care providers: A conditional nonparametric approach," MPRA Paper 51926, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Álvarez, Inmaculada C. & Barbero, Javier & Orea, Luis & Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés, 2026. "How institutions shape the economic returns to investment in European regions?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    8. Caitlin T. O’Loughlin & Paul W. Wilson, 2021. "Benchmarking the performance of US Municipalities," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(6), pages 2665-2700, June.
    9. Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés & Ketterer, Tobias, 2016. "Institutions vs. ‘First-Nature’ Geography – What Drives Economic Growth in Europe’s Regions?," CEPR Discussion Papers 11322, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Jesús Peiró-Palomino, 2019. "Government quality and regional growth in the enlarged European Union: Components, evolution and spatial spillovers," INVESTIGACIONES REGIONALES - Journal of REGIONAL RESEARCH, Asociación Española de Ciencia Regional, issue 45, pages 17-37.
    11. Roberto Martino, 2021. "Public Investment, Convergence and Productivity Growth in European regions," Working Papers - Economics wp2021_19.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    12. Inmaculada C. Alvarez & Javier Barbero & Luis Orea & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2023. "How institutions shape the economic returns of public investment in European regions," JRC Working Papers on Territorial Modelling and Analysis 2023-08, Joint Research Centre.
    13. Muringani, Jonathan & Dahl Fitjar, Rune & Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés, 2019. "Decentralisation, quality of government and economic growth in the regions of the EU," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 91023, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Cordero, José Manuel & Alonso-Morán, Edurne & Nuño-Solinis, Roberto & Orueta, Juan F. & Arce, Regina Sauto, 2015. "Efficiency assessment of primary care providers: A conditional nonparametric approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 240(1), pages 235-244.
    15. López-Torres, Laura & Johnes, Jill & Elliott, Caroline & Polo, Cristina, 2021. "The effects of competition and collaboration on efficiency in the UK independent school sector," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 40-53.
    16. 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.
    17. Cinzia Daraio & Léopold Simar & Paul W. Wilson, 2020. "Fast and efficient computation of directional distance estimators," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 288(2), pages 805-835, May.
    18. Tobias D. Ketterer & Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose, 2018. "Institutions vs. ‘first‐nature’ geography: What drives economic growth in Europe's regions?," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 97(S1), pages 25-62, March.
    19. Caitlin O’Loughlin & Léopold Simar & Paul W. Wilson, 2023. "Methodologies for assessing government efficiency," Chapters, in: António Afonso & João Tovar Jalles & Ana Venâncio (ed.), Handbook on Public Sector Efficiency, chapter 4, pages 72-101, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Roberto Ganau, 2022. "Institutions and the productivity challenge for European regions," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 1-25.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:jau:wpaper:2026/05. 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: María Aurora Garcia Gallego (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ueujies.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.