Francesco Pecci

The convergence process of the European regions: the role of Regional Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy.

Currently a large share of the European Union (EU) budget is directed toward two policies with different implications at territorial level. The fi nancial resources of the Cohesion Policy (CP)1 represent about one third of the total EU budget while the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) accounts for over 40%. The main operational tools of Cohesion Policy are the Structural Funds (SF) whose aim is reducing regional disparities in terms of income, wealth and opportunities. On the other hand, the CAP has a more sectoral focus and is confi gured with an only partial spatial dimension (EC, 2010), despite the fact that since 1992 it increased its effects on the cohesion process. This means that the territorial impacts of these policies could be asymmetric, not allowing overcoming of territorial disparities. In considering the distribution of CAP subsidies we should take into account that ‘growth in poorer regions is greatly hampered by an unfavourable industrial structure (dominated by agriculture)’ (Cappelen et al., 2003, p.640) and that according to Montresor and Pecci (2008) in some regions CAP subsidies were far higher than those of the CP and focused mainly in the more developed regions. Loosely speaking the issue consists of choosing if the distribution CAP subsidies must follow criteria based on effi ciency or on equity. Starting from these previous fi ndings, the main objective of this study is to answer this question: how effective has the EU regional development policy supported by the SF and the CAP been in promoting economic growth and in fostering the convergence of EU regions? It should be recalled that in 1989, when the EU CP began, there were strong doubts about its effectiveness. These low expectations were mainly related to the poor performances of regional development policies carried out in the Member States (MS) and to the fear that the less developed areas

The application of spatial filtering technique to the economic convergence of the european regions between 1995 and 2007

The β-convergence model has been widely used to predict the convergence rates of European regions to their steady states. However, this model has two major limitations. First, it does not take into account the spatial interactions of the economies and, second, it does not include their structural differences. Many authors have overcome the first problem by using spatial econometric techniques such as spatial lag or spatial error, but the latter problem has remained unresolved. In our model we use the spatial filtering technique to manage both spatial dependence and structural differences of the economies. Our results show that European regions have a wide range of convergence rates and in some cases regions with similar structural conditions are clustered. The spatial filtering technique is also able to highlight the scale (local, regional or global) of the phenomena that influence growth. This information is very useful for policy makers.

Simulating the Impact on the Local Economy of Alternative Management Scenarios for Natural Areas

This working paper estimates the impact on the local economy of the High Garda Natural Park of alternative management scenarios for the West Garda Regional Forest. The local economy is specialized in tourist services and strongly linked to the tourist presence and their level of expenditure. We wish to investigate the effects of the participative management strategy, which takes into account users preferences and the non-participative strategy, using the SAM multiplier analysis. The local SAM has been constructed considering three sectors: agriculture, tourism and a third aggregate sector including all the other activities. The resident population has been divided into two categories: residents employed in the tourist sector and the remaining resident population. The SAM analysis shows that the accounting representation of the local economy is meaningful and that the participative program, if chosen by the central regional management, would be the most desirable program also at the local level.

The Role of Process and Product Innovation in the Reorganisation of the Principal Beef Slaughtering Firms in Italy

The study reports themain results of research into process and product innovation in the beef processing industry in Italy. The following aspects are examined: the characteristics of meat production of the 11 largest Italian firms, whose production volume accounts for about 20% of the meat slaughtered in Italy; the supply of animals for slaughter; the distribution channels used and the innovations in production processes introduced in the last ten years. The results show that, in general, the industry possesses the technological know-how and organisational ability to put forward a number of innovatory products, but that the large-scale introduction of these products on the market has hitherto been held up by problems associated with the currently unfavourable economic situation and by difficulties in distribution. Especially important, if these innovatory production processes are to be successful, are the ongoing links between the processing industry and large scale distribution, since the latter now absorbs more than 40% of the production of these firms.

Il processo di convergenza delle regioni europee tra il 1995 e il 2007

Lo studio analizza la convergenza della produttivita del lavoro in 259 regioni NUTS-2 dell’EU-27 tra il 1995 ed il 2007, confrontando le risposte del modello soloviano proposto da Mankiw et al. (1992) e di una sua estensione. Per le stime si e utilizzato un modello econometrico basato sui filtri spaziali con caratteristiche analoghe alla Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR). Questa tecnica consente di stimare dei parametri di convergenza differenziati per ogni regione e di gestire sia la presenza di spillover spaziali, sia le differenze strutturali presenti nelle economie delle regioni. I risultati indicano che i tassi di convergenza globale stimati sono equiparabili a quelli ottenuti in molti dei precedenti studi, mentre i coefficienti locali aiutano ad interpretare in maniera piu realistica i percorsi di crescita delle regioni.