The Elusive Quest for the Holy Grail of an Impact of EU Funds on Regional Growth

One policy, different effects: Estimating the region‐specific impacts of EU cohesion policy

“…On average, we find that a 1% increase of EU cohesion policy expenditure produces a positive, significant variation of regional GDP of about 0.07% in the EU‐15 regions. Our aggregate results are in line with the findings of the contributions reviewed in Dall'Erba and Fang (2017) and, more compellingly, with recent evidence in Fidrmuc et al (2019) who employ a similar data set for an aggregate analysis. As for the EU‐10 regions in the NMS, we find that a 1% increase of EU cohesion policy produces a positive, significant variation of regional GDP of about 0.05%, in line with existing evidence (Crescenzi et al, 2017).…”

“…First, our analysis covers three decades and almost four programming periods, by allowing for the separation of long‐ and short‐run policy effects. The consideration of different programming periods, moreover, is useful to rule out the possible influence of different definitions of assisted regions over the years (i.e., Objective 1, transition), and of the cyclical patterns of the EU expenditures in particular years (Fidrmuc et al, 2019). Second, we explicitly model the heterogeneous effects of cohesion policy on regional growth, by adding to the few works that look at heterogeneity with the application of homogeneous coefficient models (Fiaschi et al, 2018).…”

“…We use modelled regionalised annual EU payments that represent the actual annual expenditure data registered at a regional level: they do not necessarily follow the yearly cycle of the EU payments, but they replicate the timing of ‘real expenditures taking place on the ground’ (European Commission, 2017). This choice is motivated by the fact that modelled data do not contain gaps in the series; this is particularly relevant at the end of each programming period to avoid cyclical patterns (Fidrmuc et al, 2019).…”

“…Moreover, the DMG approach allows for the separation of the long-run effects of cohesion policy on regional growth, which are described in the cointegrating relationship, from the short-run effects of the policy (Pedroni, 2019;Pesaran et al, 1999). 1 Differently from the recent work of Fidrmuc et al (2019), we are explicitly interested in investigating how and to what extent cohesion policy plays a heterogeneous role for regional economic growth in the long run.…”

Magtérségek és perifériák – lehetőségek és fenntartható jövő

“…Az előadás első fele a kohéziós politika regionális növekedési hatásainak becslésével, a régiók közti spillover hatások térbeli modellezésével foglalkozott. A bemutatott standard növekedési modell (Fidrmuc, Hulényi, Zajkowska 2020) a kohéziós transzfereket endogén változóként, az európai NATURA 2000 területeket független változóként tünteti fel, valamint gyelembe veszi az intézményi fejlettség és a kohéziós politika hatékonysága közti összefüggést. A védett területeket a kohéziós politika lehetséges eszközeként mutatja be, mivel azok a földterületek ipari célú felhasználását és az ingatlanberuházásokat egyaránt korlátozhatják.…”