We discuss regional disparities in economic performance and living standards. We first set out some key facts, and provide a conceptual framework to help analyze whether such disparities are efficient, or instead reflect market and/or policy failures. We examine whether policy attempts to reduce...

In the context of the U.K. government’s EMU entry condition of cyclical convergence, this paper (i) provides further evidence suggesting that historically the U.K.’s business cycle has been more volatile than, and relatively independent of, the cycles in the euro-area countries; and (ii)...

Monetary policy in the euro area is conducted within a multicountry, multicultural, and multilingual context involving multiple central banking traditions. How does this heterogeneity affect the ability of economic agents to understand and to anticipate monetary policy by the European Central...

Which structural reforms affect the speed the regional convergence within a country? We found that domestic financial development, trade/current account openness, better institutional infrastructure, and selected labor market reforms facilitate regional convergence. However, these reforms have...

In this paper we consider a model of the country with heterogeneous population and examine compensation schemes that may prevent a threat of secession by dissatisfied regions. We show that horizontal imbalances are combatable with secession-proof compensation schemes that entail a degree of...

In this paper we examine economic disparities across regions in Russia and offer a theoretical treatment of various transfer rules between different regions. We analyze the principle of partial equalization, which implies that the more depressed regions should be subsidized by the more...