![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The impact of European Cohesion Policy in urban and rural regions. Regional Studies. This paper presents an evaluation exercise on the impact of European Cohesion Policy on the economic performance of the most disadvantaged European areas (Objective 1 regions) for the programming period 2000–06. By performing the analysis at NUTS-3 rather than NUTS-2 level to exploit the exogeneity of the treatment status in the context of a regression discontinuity design (RDD), the analysis shows that European Cohesion funds have positively contributed to generating economic growth in lagging areas. However, their effect is mainly driven by the successful performance of rural areas close to the main urban agglomerates. Favourable geography and the progressive suburbanization of the rural landscape created new opportunities for rural areas close to cities, thus boosting the effect of the policy.
摘要
欧盟凝聚政策在城市和乡村地区的影响. Regional Studies. 本文提供欧盟凝聚政策在 2000 年至 2006 年期间，对欧洲最为贫困地区（第一目标区域）的经济表现之影响所进行的评估活动。本分析透过在 NUTS-3 而非 NUTS-2 层级进行分析，以在断点迴归设计（RDD）的脉络中利用待遇身份的外部性，显示出欧盟凝聚基金在落后地区中引发了正向的经济成长。但其效应主要是受到邻近主要城市集群的乡村地区的成功表现所驱动。有利的地理和进行中的乡村地景郊区化，为邻近城市的乡村地区创造了新的机会，因此促进了政策效益。
RÉSUMÉ
L’impact sur les régions urbano-rurales de la politique européenne en faveur de la cohésion. Regional Studies. Cet article cherche à évaluer l’impact de la politique européenne en faveur de la cohésion sur la performance économique des zones européennes les plus défavorisées (les régions relevant de l’Objectif 1) pour la période de programmation allant de l’an 2000 jusqu’à 2006. En effectuant une analyse au niveau NUTS-3 plutôt qu’à l’échelle NUTS-2 dans le but d’exploiter l’exogénéité du statut de traitement dans le contexte d’une régression par discontinuité, l’analyse montre que le Fonds européen de cohésion a contribué de façon positive à la réalisation de la croissance économique dans les zones en perte de vitesse. Cependant, l’impact est dans une large mesure piloté par la performance réussie des zones rurales situées près des principales agglomérations urbaines. Une géographie favorable et la banlieusardisation progressive du paysage rural ont créé de nouvelles possibilités pour les zones rurales situées près des grandes villes, renforçant ainsi l’impact de la politique.
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG
Auswirkungen der europäischen Kohäsionspolitik in städtischen und ländlichen Regionen. Regional Studies. Dieser Beitrag enthält eine Bewertung der Auswirkungen der europäischen Kohäsionspolitik auf die Wirtschaftsleistung der am stärksten benachteiligten europäischen Gebiete (Ziel-1-Regionen) für den Programmplanungszeitraum 2000–06. Wenn die Analyse statt auf NUTS-2- auf NUTS-3-Ebene durchgeführt wird, um die Exogenität des Behandlungsstatus im Kontext einer Regressions-Diskontinuitäts-Analyse zu nutzen, zeigt sich ein positiver Beitrag der europäischen Kohäsionsfonds zum Wirtschaftswachstum in rückständigen Gebieten. Allerdings hängt dieser Effekt vor allem von der erfolgreichen Leistung von ländlichen Gebieten in der Nähe der wichtigsten städtischen Ballungsgebiete ab. Eine günstige Geografie und die fortschreitende Suburbanisierung ländlicher Gegenden hat neue Chancen für ländliche Gebiete in Stadtnähe geschaffen und so die Wirksamkeit der Politik verstärkt.
RESUMEN
Impacto de la política europea de cohesión en regiones urbanas y rurales. Regional Studies. Este artículo contiene un ejercicio de evaluación sobre el impacto de la política europea de cohesión en cuanto al rendimiento económico de las zonas europeas más desfavorecidas (regiones del Objetivo 1) para el periodo de programación de 2000 a 2006. Al llevar a cabo el análisis en el nivel NUTS-3 en vez del nivel NUTS-2 para aprovechar la exogeneidad del estado de tratamiento en el contexto de un diseño de regresión discontinua (DRD), el análisis muestra que los fondos europeos de cohesión han contribuido positivamente a generar crecimiento económico en áreas rezagadas. Sin embargo, este efecto depende sobre todo del buen rendimiento en áreas rurales cerca de grandes aglomeraciones urbanas. La geografía favorable y la suburbanización progresiva del paisaje rural ofrecen nuevas oportunidades a las áreas rurales próximas a las ciudades, potenciando el efecto de la política.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper was developed in the context of the ‘STAREBEI 2011: Built to Last: Development Policies and Socio-Economic Foresight in the Cities of Europe’ grant provided by the European Investment Bank (EIB). The authors thank Gianni Carbonaro and audience at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) seminar for comments and advices.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
SUPPLEMENTAL DATA
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org10.1080/00343404.2016.1179384
ORCID
Luisa Gagliardi http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6266-4572
Notes
1. See Appendix A in the supplemental data online for additional information on European Cohesion Policy and the definition of key terms. The focus here is on 2000–06 as it is the only period for which there are data one year before the formal start of the programme and for two years after the programme’s official end. See the third section for details.
2. In the definition of the European Commission, these areas coincide with towns and suburbs/small urban areas or regions ‘which [contain] an urban centre of more than 200000 inhabitants representing at least 25% of the regional population’ (Dijkstra & Poelman, Citation2008).
3. Results further endorsed by Percoco (Citation2005), which focus on a set of South Italian regions and use a small supply-side computable model.
4. See Table B1 in Appendix B in the supplemental data online for additional descriptive statistics for control variables.
5. With the accession of Bulgaria and Romania on 1 January 2007, regions became 271 and 1303 respectively.
6. Urban clusters are defined as clusters of contiguous grid cells of 1 km2 with a density of at least 300 inhabitants/km2 and a minimum population of 5000. All areas outside urban clusters are defined as rural. Based on this definition, NUTS-3 regions are classified as predominantly rural if the share of the population living in rural areas is higher than 50%; intermediate if the share of the population living in rural areas is between 20% and 50%; and predominantly urban if the share of the population living in rural areas is below 20%. Two further caveats apply: (1) a predominantly rural region that contains an urban centre of more than 200,000 inhabitants representing at least 25% of the regional population becomes intermediate; and (2) an intermediate region that contains an urban centre of more than 500,000 inhabitants representing at least 25% of the regional population becomes predominantly urban.
7. All predominantly urban regions are close to a city. A predominantly rural or intermediate region is considered remote if fewer than half of its residents can drive to the centre of a city of at least 50,000 inhabitants within 45 minutes.
8. Bandwidth sizes have been selected according to the Imbens and Kalyanaraman (Citation2012) procedure. This paper has restricted the sample to ±50% of EU average GDP per capita, set at 0.
9. The horizontal line in ranks NUTS-3 regions according to the ratio between the per capita GDP of the NUTS-2 region to which they belong and the EU average per capita GDP in 1999. To this ratio, the authors have subtracted 75% (i.e., the threshold) to obtain a standardized measure of GDP per capita. Therefore, a deviation of +1 should be interpreted as a 1% deviation from the treatment.
10. Odd values of R2 are due to the IV model for which it is often not possible to compute meaningful goodness-of-fit statistics.
11. Additional robustness checks, in particular placebo regressions, are reported in Appendix C in the supplemental data online.
