The paper asks whether subsidies aiming to redistribute economic activity across regions can be justified with the welfare argument. Moreover, different tax systems are compared with respect to the size of the subsidy needed for achieving a certain spatial distribution of economic activity, and...

The interaction of inequality and growth and the direction of causality in this relationship have been an extensively discussed topic with several questions but without clear answers both in the theoretical and empirical literature. The current paper contributes mainly into the new economic...

This paper investigates the main characteristics of regional clusters in EU 27 and Croatia. The special interest is focused on the economic performance of regional clusters in the Croatian economy. The main research question is: what characterises regional clusters in EU 27 and Croatia, and what...

Development gaps are a common feature throughout the regions of the European Union, and Romania is no exception. Despite all the political and financial efforts, the convergence process is lengthy and complex, and the gaps with the deepest economic and social roots are the most difficult to be...

Spatial aspects of economic and social cohesion have become a major target in European policy in the last decades. By combining the structural funds with spatial development perspectives, the recently introduced concept of territorial cohesion obviously functions as link between EU regional...

There is a rich debate in the innovation literature about to what extent innovation has become an international (or globalised) phenomenon, or, on the contrary, it maintains its local/regional character. As Koschatzky (2001) notes, given the fact that knowledge is commonly tied to personal...

This paper describes some of the features of a new dynamic general equilibrium framework (RHOMOLO) being developed at the European Commission (JRC-IPTS, together with DG REGIO) for evaluating EU Cohesion Policy. The design of the model reflects the objectives of Cohesion Policy, and a broader...

This paper reconsiders the theoretical foundations of EU regional policy in economics. It begins with a discussion of the line of thought of its prevalent explanation in equilibrium economics which is focusing on market failures as its key underpinning and which is the major toolkit of...