This paper investigates the evolution of the geographical distribution of unemployment rates in a sample of 258 NUTS-2 European regions between 2000 and 2011. In particular, I explore the role played by market equilibrium, disequilibrium and institutional factors shaping regional unemployment disparities. To that end, the present analysis uses recently developed spatial panel econometric techniques that integrate spatial and temporal dynamics. Important methodological issues such as region-speci_x000C_c and time-speci_x000C_c _x000C_xed e_x000B_ects, spatial estimation methods, speci_x000C_cation and the selection of the spatial matrix are addressed. In conjunction with spatio-temporal panel data regression model estimates, stochastic kernels are used to analyze the e_x000B_ect of the various factors in the shape of the whole distribution of unemployment rate. Empirical results suggest that regional unemployment rate di_x000B_erences have decreased and that such regional convergence process has been driven by regional market equilibrium factors.

While the level of disparities across regions in 10 advanced European economies studied in this paper mostly reflects productivity gaps, the increase since the Great Recession has resulted from diverging unemployment rates. Following the pandemic, this could be further exacerbated given teleworkability rates are lower in poorer regions than in high-income regions, making them ex-ante more vulnerable to the pandemic’s likely material impact on the prevalence of remote work. Preliminary evidence from 2020 confirms that regional disparities between countries increased during 2020. A further concern is that the pandemic might accelerate the automation of jobs across Europe, something which often happens following recessions. While lagging regions have lower ex-ante vulnerabilities against the routinization, the transformation of jobs through sectors with higher routinization rates in these regions could increase their vulnerability to technological change over time. The green transition could also lead to challenges for regions that have benefitted from carbon-intensive growth strategies. Finally, the paper discusses the role for policies—including placed-based ones—in reducing disparities in the face of the aforementioned short, medium, and long-term risks.

The third stage of European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) was implemented in January 1999 against the specter of persistently high unemployment in many of the participating countries. While the high European unemployment has received considerable attention, this new IMF staff study analyzes an equally important issue: the extent of regional unemployment disparities in certain countries. The paper focuses on large and persistent differences in regional unemployment rates within several European countries. The paper includes detailed case studies of two euro area countries where regional disparities in unemployment are striking- Italy and Spain. The studies emphasize that wages are unresponsive to local labor market conditions.

The main aim of this paper is to study the European regional disparities in the labour market, considering the regional productive structures and some regional institutional variables. It is widely known that one of the EU's most important stylized facts is the regional disparities among regions. Such differences are related mostly to the income per capita and to the labour market captured through the unemployment rates. In a recent paper (Amendola, Caroleo Coppola, 2004) we analyzed the economic structure of the EU's regions through some proxies of the productive assets and of the labour markets. In this paper we estimate a panel data model where the dependent variable is the regional unemployment rate and the independent variables are some variables related to the productive structure and some regional institutional aspects. The results we obtain confirm that the institutional variables, such as the centralization of wage bargaining, the decentralization of public expenditure and the bureaucracy level, have an important impact on the unemployment rates.

In his 2003 Ph.D. dissertation in economics for the University of Goettingen, Sudekum analyzes regional unemployment rates across the European Union, as one example of vast disparities between rich and poor regions in all dimensions of economics. He does not provide an index.

1 2 Daniel Felsenstein and Boris A. Portnov 1 Department of Geography, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel 2 Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, University of Haifa, Israel During the Candiot War of 1645-1669, the Ottoman Sultan Ibrahim I ordered his chief admiral to attack Malta. Fearing imminent defeat by the superior Venetian forces stationed on the island, the admiral decided to trick the sultan out of the idea. As the story goes, he placed a candle on his naval map, allowing the wax to drip on the tiny island until it was completely covered. Then he exclaimed in false surprise, “Malta Yok!” (There is no Malta!), and convinced the sultan to sail his fleet to the Island of Crete instead. Although Malta is not featured in this volume, most of the countries it covers are of “wax drip” size. Intuitively, it may be expected that everything in small countries is diminutive: distances, population, economies, and even regional inequalities. Thus, at a symposium on “The Challenge of Development” convened in Israel in 1957 to mark the inauguration of a new building for the Department of Economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the eminent US economist Simon Kuznets stated that “developed small states seem to have succeeded in spreading the fruits of economic growth more widely among their populations than the larger states at comparable levels of income per capita”.