Convergence among EU Regions, 1990-2001 – Quality of National Institutions and “Objective 1” Status

This article focuses on convergence in terms of output per working age person across regions in the European Union for the period 1990-2001. Controlling for the quality of national institutions, the authors investigate whether the status of “objective 1” region improves the speed of convergence as compared to what would be expected given the regions’ initial conditions. They fi nd evidence of conditional convergence among EU regions, with the quality of national institutions having a positive impact, but no evidence of a correlation between eligibility for objective 1 and faster convergence.

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