The report is divided into two main parts. The first part adopts a long-term perspective, examining the changes in regional disparities in economic performance across the EU over the period since 1980 - or at least up to 2011, the latest year for which the relevant data are available. Its...

In recent years it has been pointed out that regional unemployment disparities are much more entrenched across member states of the European Union (E.U.) than they are in the U.S. A "conventional wisdom" has emerged to the effect that this difference is due in part to the greater degree of wage...