A new regional balance: Challenges and opportunities for intermediate city regions in Europe (original) (raw)
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The big European sort? The diverging fortunes of Europe's regions
CER Policy Brief, 2019
Much ink has been spilled over the economic causes of the EU’s political problems. Many point towards high levels of income inequality, and the financial and euro crises. Fewer have considered how structural economic changes have led to regional divergence – with profitable companies and highly-skilled people clustering together in successful cities, leaving less successful areas behind. The interactive map below illustrates Europe’s economic fault-lines. It shows regional productivity, measured by economic output per worker: the deeper the blue, the higher the region’s productivity as a percentage of the EU average, while the deeper the red, the lower. It shows that many regions in richer countries are far less productive than the EU average, and some places in poorer countries are more productive than that average. By clicking on a region, you can see more information about how it compares to the rest of Europe. Many UK regions have similar productivity to countries in Southern Europe. These countries were badly hit by the Great Recession. Through a modelling exercise, we have also estimated how productive a region ‘should’ be, given the age of its population, how many of its residents are graduates, how close geographically the region is to the economic core of the EU or the region’s country, and how densely settled the region is. That is displayed on the second map. According to our modelling, the worst performing European region is Berlin: it is a favoured destination for young graduates, but has not yet translated that into the higher levels of productivity seen in most capitals in Europe. Many post-industrial towns and cities are not much better: many have not found a niche in an economy that is increasingly dominated by the services sector. Over the last four decades, Europe has seen diverging fortunes among its rural regions, towns and cities. But the much-discussed ‘rural-urban divide’ is too simple, and does not fit the data. Nor has economic integration in the EU led to greater divergence across regions, on average. Growth in industrial output has been stronger in the countryside and towns in Western Europe, and spread evenly across regions in Central and Eastern Europe. But high-value services have become more concentrated in successful cities in the West, especially since the financial crisis. In the 1980s and 1990s, industrial heartlands such as the Ruhr Area in Germany suffered from relative – and in some cases, absolute – decline in industrial output. The largest cities and regions near them – often capitals such as Paris or London – were able to replace declining industrial production with high-value services, especially tradable services such as finance, tech, culture and advertising, and in some cases, such as Munich, also with high-tech manufacturing. The increasing concentration of services can also be seen in corporate profit data. Bloomberg Economics estimates show that the concentration of profits among the top firms has not been driven by size or market power, but rather by the sector in which the firms operate. Tech, healthcare and communications are the sectors in Europe with the strongest divergence in profits between the top and the median firm. The most important question is: what makes a successful region? With a new regression analysis, we show that high productivity levels in regions are associated with three factors: they are part of – or geographically close to – successful cities; a larger proportion of their workforce are graduates; and their populations are younger. The association of a high share of graduates with productivity levels is also rising over time. This will, in turn, encourage more young graduates to move to places that are already successful. This creates a dilemma for Europe’s policy-makers. Should they attempt to invest in areas in relative decline, to try to stem the outflow of highly-skilled people and address the frustration of people ‘left behind’? Or should they invest more in skills, housing and transport to make it easier for people to move to successful cities? While the latter might lead to the largest productivity gains, it risks hardening Europe’s political fault-lines. This paper is the first in a major new CER project, ‘Growing together: the Angelopoulos project on the future of the European economy’. In future papers, we will consider how technological changes and globalisation might affect growth and inequality across the EU’s member-states and regions, and whether these changes will tend to aggravate or soothe political tensions in Europe.
Overview on Regional Economic Development Gaps across the EU
Research Papers in Economics, 2017
Despite existing policies of regional development and cohesion at the national and the EU level, economic regional inequalities or disparities stay relatively high or decrease too slowly. In this context, policies to reduce economic regional disparities in the European Union are a constant concern both for policy-makers and for theoretical and empirical research because of the strong impact on sustainable development in general. In this study we combine elements of theoretical and policy discussions with the empirical assessment of economic regional development in the European Union in order to identify the state of regional disparities, what factors are favouring unbalanced growth in different regions of the EU and to find an appropriate theoretical setting to understand, explain and reduce with regional inequality in the EU
If Urban Regions are the Answer, What is the Question? Thoughts on the European Experience
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH 39(2) · MARCH 2015
This essay contributes to the current debate in the field of critical urban and regional studies on the meanings of the ‘regional’ and the ‘urban’. From a political science perspective, we focus on the European case. Firstly, we argue that the conception of the regional scale is not the same in various languages and traditions. Regions in Europe carry meanings and connotations that are not always easy to translate without losing their specific histories. Secondly, our analysis of contemporary debates on the ‘regional’ in the field of urban studies reveals that both practitioners and academics consider the regional scale mainly as a functional space, as the space for economic competitiveness. However, urban regions are also to be regarded as spaces for social and political mobilization. I argue that the political dimension of the ‘regional’ deserves more attention and that further research needs to be undertaken in this respect.
Challenges and Opportunities to Regional Renewal in the European Union
International Regional Science Review, 2020
The strength of the 2008 financial and economic crisis and the resulting degree of resilience were heterogeneous among and within the European Union countries. Challenges and opportunities driven by regional-specific differences determined the ability to overshoot the precrisis levels of growth. Focusing upon Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics 2 (NUTS 2) European regions, we explore a novel conceptual framework related to regional economic resilience, namely the renewal capacity. Precisely, we concentrate on the capacity of regional economies to "renew" their growth paths in the labor market in the aftermath of the recent global crisis. We find some well-identified spatial patterns of regional employment renewal and we identify a set of territorial assets that allow regions to bounce back faster and more comprehensively than others to the economic downturn. Furthermore, there are significant differences between the drivers of the regional renewal of Old and New Member States. Our findings suggest potential policy directions at all levels for enhancing regional resilience.
Regional Studies, 1999
C A SEL LAS A. and G A L L EY C. C. (1999) Regional de® nitions in the European Union: a question of disparities?, Reg. Studies 33, 551± 558. This paper explores the concept of regional disparities in the European Union (EU) and challenges the present regional classi® cation. The EU Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, referred to by the French acronym N UTS, is very heterogeneous in character. Tiny islands, cities, large rural regions and entire countries are considered to be comparable units for analysis. A reformulation of regional boundaries and the comparison to the U S case helps to show that regional disparities within the EU are overstated as an artifact of the present regional de® nitions. Our ® ndings show that the EU regional nomenclature should be more coherent if it is to be used as the basis for regional development policies.
CONVERGING AND DIVERGING REGIONS IN THE EU: IMPLICATIONS FOR REGIONAL POLICY
This paper investigates the extent of regional cohesion amongst European regions; an issue of emerging importance in the fast growing literature on regional economics. This paper aims toshed some further light on the question of regional cohesion by taking into account the impactof the existing technological gaps across regions. Regional cohesion is examined in terms oflabour productivity for the NUTS-2 regions of the EU-27 during the time period 1995-2006. The results suggest the existence of two separate groups or clubs. The first includes regions from advanced northern European countries, while the members in the second club are mainly found in the new member-states and in southern European countries, putting the issue of European regional policy into a fresh premise. To be more specific, the results have important implications for the (re) direction of regional policy in Europe towards a new set of objectives and instruments.
12th WORLD CONGRESS OF RSAI SPATIAL SYSTEMS: SOCIAL INTEGRATION, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY
The contemporary socio-economic development process shows tendencies towards growing divergence. At the same time the limited effectiveness of present activities of regional policy is emphasized as well as the existence of barriers to achieve the differences in the level and standard of life socially accepted. External determinants of the development process, specific in various parts of the world including Western and East-Central Europe, are linked with long-term changes in economic systems (Naisbitt, 1982; Naisbitt, Naisbitt, 2016; Horváth, 2015; Salamin, 2016). The current state of these changes results from the transformation creating postmodern conditions for economic activity, characteristic of the present stage in the development of cognitive capitalism (Harvey, 1990; Boutang, 2012). They are strengthened by globalization manifested increasingly with advancing economic integration (Huwart, Verdier, 2013). In these difficult conditions, shaped by identified megatrends, a real challenge is a successful influence on regional development factors, which effectively tend to optimize the conditions of leading economic processes and consequently to improve the level of life (The Future of Cohesion Policy…, 2015; White Paper…, 2017; Seventh Report…, 2017; Schneider, 2017). This is so because these factors change the range, interpretation and mechanism of the interaction, and significantly differ in space, which leads to their redefinition. The analysis aims to determine the direction and range of the redefinition of development factors of the regions of the EU member states and to identify their current spatial differences. The research involves three stages. The first stage presents the results of the arrangements organizing the direction and range of the influence of contemporary megatrends in socio-economic development on the changes in regional development factors. The second stage involves an analysis and typology of differences in the level and dynamics of the development of the EU member states and their regions. The third stage of the analysis concerns the identification of differences in the factors of regional development in the set of all the investigated regions and in their sub-set representing the development types identified. This research also includes the organization of the obtained pattern of regional development factors in the three categories of cohesion: economic, social and territorial. This analysis seeks to identify the factors which significantly shape changes and the present state of regional socio-economic differences in Europe and their specific features in the pattern of regions: more developed – transitory – less developed. The study in question is implemented under the research project FORSED (http://www.forsed.amu.edu.pl) financed by the National Science Centre as part of the competition OPUS 10 - 2015/19/B/HS5/00012: New challenges of regional policy in shaping socio-economic development factors the less-developed regions. KEY WORDS: development factor, megatrends in socio-economic changes, cohesion, spatial development differences, less-developed regions, European Union
Convergence of Regional Development in the European Union
USV Annals of Economics and Public Administration, 2015
During the last century Europe, politicians have become increasingly aware that the establishment of lasting domestic and international economic relations based on trust and demonstrating solidarity with individuals and / or less developed nations, have become indispensable in order to achieve general welfare It is important to analyse the conditions for achieving economic growth and regional development, which have been discussed in terms of the experiences of Member States over time and their critical issues affecting the EU and making it vulnerable. The issue of the financial instruments used by the EU to improve regional development and alignment of Member States policies is also approached. The economic development of a region is usually expressed in terms of gross domestic product (GDP). This ratio is also frequently used as a basis for regions’ comparison. Another indicator is the one related to employment. Regional convergence in GDP per capita expressed in PPS can be analys...
How did Regional Economic Structures in the EU Change during the Economic Crisis
2018
10 years on, many countries and regions in the EU still bear the scars of the 2008/2009 financial crisis. Countries and regions have recovered at different rates and undergone different structural changes. While the asymmetric impact of the crisis across regions and sectors has had a short-term impact on concentration and specialisation patterns; long-term forces, such as global economic and supply chain integration, continue to shape the economic landscape of European regions. In our empirical analysis, we describe the development of regional economic structures in terms of sectoral employment and production (gross value added) during the crisis. We focus on the location pattern of sectors (concentration), i.e. in which regions economic activities in a sector tend to be located, and the specialisation of regions, i.e. which sectors are particularly important in a region. Our analysis shows that the impact of the crisis on overall specialisation patterns appears rather limited, alth...