Convergence After Divergence? Regional Growth in Europe

The European cohesion problem: Income disparities in the European Union; The social dimension of cohesion: Unemployment disparities, and their linkage with income disparities; Major theories in the explanation of regional disparities An overview.- The neo-classical model of growth, and regional convergence: The neo-classical model of growth as the cornerstone of the convergence hypothesis; Convergence: The theoretical concept; On the methodologies of empirical convergence analysis; Convergence studies for EU regions A literature review; Policy implications.- The changing pattern of regional convergence in Europe. Empirical evidence from a cross-section and a panel data analysis: Introduction; The econometric methods applied in this study to test for convergence; The data; Results: Regional convergence and non-convergence in Western Europe during the past 40 years; Conclusions.- Further economic theories in the convergence Divergence debate: The possibility of regional divergence in models of endogenous growth; The contribution of the new economic geography in the convergence divergence debate; Conclusions.- Investment and growth: The role of investment in models of economic growth; How investment promoting policies affect growth; Conclusions and policy implications.- Public capital and growth: Introduction; Public capital in models of economic growth; Empirical evidence of the growth impact of public capital.- Technological change, knowledge creation, and growth: Technological change and economic growth; Education: The production of human capital as a source of endogenous growth; Empirics of innovation, human capital formation and growth in EU regions.- Other determinants of growth: Introduction; Other economic determinants of growth; Social factors and growth.- What determined the uneven growth of Europe s southern regions? An empirical study with panel data: Introduction; The data set; Empirical developments in the Southern regions and Ireland; Estimation of the determinants of income and growth in a panel data model; Results, Conclusions.-