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The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of democratic European countries. One of his goals was and is to equalize living conditions in all countries. Unfortunately, it is not. Today, still, there are clear disparities both economic and social. It is worth a closer look, how does the situation in the UE at the national level. The aim of this study is to analyze the most current size selected macroeconomic and social at the EU member states to show that, despite the common policy of these countries are different.

This paper investigates for the first time the relationship between fiscal decentralization and regional disparities in a set of European Union countries. Our findings reveal that the devolution of fiscal power to subnational governments is negatively correlated with the level of regional inequality within the sample countries. Therefore, the processes of fiscal decentralization may contribute to a more balanced distribution of resources across space, making up for the central government's loss of redistributive power. In fact, this result is robust to the inclusion of additional explanatory variables in the analysis, and to the choice of the measure used to quantify the degree of dispersion in the spatial distribution of per capita income.

The impact of the economic and financial crisis is still being felt. It started as an acute crisis of the banking system, but then quickly affected the real economy, causing a substantial slump in business investment, household demand and output. The current economic crisis has affected almost all European countries but the countries of the European south and the former eastern socialist republics have suffered the most. The objective in this paper is to quantify economic disparities as expressed by several growth indicators, such as GDP per capita, employment/unemployment rates, labour productivity rates and use them to compare the economic performances before and after the crisis. EU took several measures to recover from the economic crisis. Nevertheless, its ability to adjust to widely diverse national and local contexts that have been impacted differently by the effects of the crisis, and to support the different patterns of economic growth that will result from it, is yet to be seen.

We characterise regional labour market problems in the EU 27 using disaggregate data on regional employment, unemployment and participation rates, by gender and 10-year age groups at the NUTS-2 level. We ask whether accession changed disparities in regional labour market conditions and to what degree the structure of employment, unemployment and participation rates in the 12 new member countries differs from the EU 15. We find that aggregate labour market disparities are comparable between the two country groups but that there are important structural differences. Performing a basic components analysis we find that five principal components (four of which are associated with the structure of employment and participations rates) explain around 90 percent of the variance in the data. Cluster analysis suggests that new member country regions are most similar in structural labour market characteristics to many German and French NUTS-2 regions. Regression analysis suggests that the correlates of aggregate regional employment and unemployment rates between the two groups do not differ dramatically but that there may be some differences with respect to employment rates of individual demographic groups.

The regional unemployment disparities are a common feature of the labor market in many EU countries. Nowadays, not only the existence but also the dynamics of these regional disparities are a very important issue. This is the reason why, in the present paper, we intend to identify and analyze the evolution of these differences, at the beginning of the XXIst century, as well as the possible causes that might generate them. In order to reach these objectives, we have collected, analyzed and interpreted the data obtained from various researches, statistical reports and databases. Our results show that, even if the regional disparities in employment and unemployment in EU states have diminished at the beginning of the XXIst century, they significantly started to increase after 2009, in the context of the economic and financial crisis. Some of the causes that determined the regional unemployment disparities in EU might be the level and the power of unions, the labor productivity and mobility, the labor market institutions and regulations.

Economic disparities between the regions of the European Union are of constant concern both for policy and economic research. In this paper we examine whether there are overlapping trends of regional development in the EU: overall convergence on the one hand and persistent or even increasing spatial concentration (agglomeration) on the other. Kernel density estimation, Markov chain analysis and cross-sectional regressions provide evidence that convergence of regional per-capita income in the EU15 has become considerably stronger in the 1990s. The reduction of income disparities, however, is a phenomenon between nations but not between regions within the EU countries. European integration (and possibly European regional policy) foster the catching-up of lagging countries but at the same time forces for agglomeration of economic activities tend to increase disparities within the EU member states. Obviously, the productive advantages of spatial proximity do not vanish in the knowledge economy.

Economic disparities between the regions of the European Union are of constant concern both for policy and economic research. In this paper we examine whether there are overlapping trends of regional development in the EU: overall convergence on the one hand and persistent or even increasing spatial concentration (agglomeration) on the other. Kernel density estimation, Markov chain analysis and cross-sectional regressions provide evidence that convergence of regional per-capita income in the EU15 has become considerably stronger in the 1990s. The reduction of income disparities, however, is a phenomenon between nations but not between regions within the EU countries. European integration (and possibly European regional policy) foster the catching-up of lagging countries but at the same time forces for agglomeration of economic activities tend to increase disparities within the EU member states. Obviously, the productive advantages of spatial proximity do not vanish in the knowledge economy.

This book challenges the common perception that significant regional disparities do not exist in small countries. As small developed countries become increasingly competitive and their economic structures resemble those of the large, a re-assessment of the regional consequences of these changes is of timely importance. Regional Disparities in Small Countries presents a systematic discussion of the unique theoretical, methodological and measurement challenges in analyzing regional inequalities in small countries and a series of empirical analyses addressing the issue of regional convergence and divergence in these countries. With contributions from leading regional scientists and economists, this book also examines the policy experience of small countries in closing regional gaps and the effectiveness of public interventions in this field.

This book challenges the common perception that significant regional disparities do not exist in small countries. As small developed countries become increasingly competitive and their economic structures resemble those of the large, a re-assessment of the regional consequences of these changes is of timely importance. Regional Disparities in Small Countries presents a systematic discussion of the unique theoretical, methodological and measurement challenges in analyzing regional inequalities in small countries and a series of empirical analyses addressing the issue of regional convergence and divergence in these countries. With contributions from leading regional scientists and economists, this book also examines the policy experience of small countries in closing regional gaps and the effectiveness of public interventions in this field. TOC:Introduction. Concepts, Theory and Methods: The Liability of Smallness.- Country Size in Regional Economics.- Measures of Regional Inequality for Small Countries.- Investigating Spatial Patterns of Income Disparities Using Coordinate Transformations and GIS Mapping. Empirical Evidence: Regional Employment Disparities in Belgium.- Regional Income Convergence and Inequality in Boom and Bust (Finland).- Regional Disparities in Ireland.- The Persistence of Regional Unemployment Disparities in the Netherlands.- The Dynamics of Regional Disparities in a Small Country (Slovenia).- Interregional Disparities in Israel.- Does Decentralisation Matter to Regional Inequalities? Regional Inequalities in the EU Enlargement Countries. Policy Issues: Has the Financial Economy Increased Regional Disparities in Switzerland over the Last Three Decades?- Regional Policy Lessons from Finland.- The Globalisation of Austrian Regions.- Innovation Policy

Economic disparities between the regions of the European Union are of constant concern both for policy and economic research. One of the "stylised facts" from the empirical literature is that the process of absolute convergence observed for decades has slowed down or even petered out during the 1980s. In this paper we analyse whether it has resumed and persisted in the 1990s when European integration made huge steps forward. We construct a typology of regions in order to examine whether there are overlapping trends of regional development, in particular, overall convergence on the one hand and persistent or even increasing spatial concentration (agglomeration) on the other. Both of our approaches, Marcov chain analysis and dynamic panel estimation, provide evidence that regional convergence in the EU15 has become stronger in the 1990s. At the same time there appears to exist a tendency towards further agglomeration of high income economic activities. Keywords: Regional growth, agglomeration, dynamic panel estimation

The main research aim is to investigate and test the long-term existence of a balanced relationship (cointegration) between business demographics and economic growth, expressed in terms of real GDP per capita, and to estimate the econometric models expressing relationships between analyzed variables in European economy. Our The study has focused on ten out of the eleven former communist countries, currently members of the European Union, during the 2006–2016 time period. Croatia was left out due to the shortness of the time series available for it, that the study would have required. These findings have significant implications in designing and shaping the future business models in European former communist countries, and increase convergence. The results obtained confirm the existence of long-term balanced relationships between the variables examined, the forms of which however vary from one cluster of states to another.

Many countries face the challenge of ensuring equal opportunities for all citizens, irrespective of where they reside. These problems cannot be solved without an evaluation of social, territorial, and economic disparities. It is important to understand the causes and nature of this process, because even small differences in economic growth among regions, accumulated over a long period, may lead to considerable disparities in living standards in different parts of the same country. These differences have negative impact on further economic growth and contribute to economic, social and political tensions between regions, which in turn lead to an inefficient spatial allocation and use of resources. This has led that European economic integration which began in the fifties of the last century was always accompanied by the idea of social cohesion. While developing cohesion programs the evaluation of economic disparities between regions has become particularly relevant and regional economic convergence became the main principle of regional policy. EU regional policy can be considered successful if the disparities between the regions decrease, but studies dealing with the convergence / divergence matter do not provide definitive conclusions. Evaluation of regional economic convergence process primarily highlights the problem of definition of the region, whereas the term, depending on the context in which it is used, acquires a different meaning. The criteria to define the concept of the region range between two extremes – the normative and functional. The studies on the regions of the EU member states most commonly use administrative regions which are defined according to the nomenclature of territorial statistical units. According to the review of researches on regional convergence in the EU it can be stated that despite a few exceptions analyses focus on NUTS2 (less commonly NUTS1) level regions. [.]

Many countries face the challenge of ensuring equal opportunities for all citizens, irrespective of where they reside. These problems cannot be solved without an evaluation of social, territorial, and economic disparities. It is important to understand the causes and nature of this process, because even small differences in economic growth among regions, accumulated over a long period, may lead to considerable disparities in living standards in different parts of the same country. These differences have negative impact on further economic growth and contribute to economic, social and political tensions between regions, which in turn lead to an inefficient spatial allocation and use of resources. This has led that European economic integration which began in the fifties of the last century was always accompanied by the idea of social cohesion. While developing cohesion programs the evaluation of economic disparities between regions has become particularly relevant and regional economic convergence became the main principle of regional policy. EU regional policy can be considered successful if the disparities between the regions decrease, but studies dealing with the convergence / divergence matter do not provide definitive conclusions. Evaluation of regional economic convergence process primarily highlights the problem of definition of the region, whereas the term, depending on the context in which it is used, acquires a different meaning. The criteria to define the concept of the region range between two extremes – the normative and functional. The studies on the regions of the EU member states most commonly use administrative regions which are defined according to the nomenclature of territorial statistical units. According to the review of researches on regional convergence in the EU it can be stated that despite a few exceptions analyses focus on NUTS2 (less commonly NUTS1) level regions. [.]