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Borders prevent the optimal exploitation of socio‐economic and environmental resources. A relevant obstacle due to missed integration is associated with legal and administrative barriers, which cause the emergence of untapped potentials. This paper exploits the case study of the Interreg Central Europe programme. Removing borders among countries in the area enhances scale economies due to a large market for inputs and goods, both within regions and across Central European area regions. This paper identifies untapped potentials by looking at the missed regional GDP growth due to the inefficient exploitation of regional growth assets. Results hint at a complex and heterogeneous spatial distribution of untapped potentials, involving several growth factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We focus on the extent to which polycentric urban regions can substitute for the agglomeration economies provided by large cities. Building on an open‐source software tool that helps identifying polycentric developments in urban regions, we analyse the spatial structure (in terms of size, dispersion and polycentricity) of 94 regions across 34 European countries and link this to their level of total factor productivity. We find that both more polycentric regions and more dispersed regions are associated with lower productivity levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Which role do city‐regions play in European innovation network formation? We study the evolution of innovation collaborative networks in European city‐regions outlining two opposite models: in the exclusive network model city‐regions establish a closed network of innovators among themselves; in the inclusive network models city‐regions build a network of innovators which includes the peripheral regions. Employing a temporal exponential random graph model on 248 regions for the period 2000–2016, we find that the two models coexist. We conclude that in the EU the city‐regions act as both engines of generation of innovation and integrators of innovation actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National city ranks do not describe a settlement's local and regional relevance adequately. We introduce a method to rank settlements' centrality based on travel time and settlement size. We investigate the relationship between a settlement's size, whether it is a local or regional centre, and its service endowment. The approach explains per capita service endowments in Europe well, adding nuances that national rankings do not fully capture. In addition, it establishes a characterization of service types by empirically discernible preferences in spatial scale. Finally, results suggest that service endowment in settlements can be reshuffled because of faster road connections, with services spatially concentrating in better connected areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our empirical analysis focuses on the effect of regional policies on migration attraction factors in Europe. We employ a regression discontinuity design to assess the causal relationship between the reception of large amounts of public funds and migration flows in the EU‐15 regions. In highly‐subsidised regions, we find a large increase in the share of foreign citizens from less‐developed countries when compared to low‐subsidised regions with similar pre‐treatment characteristics. The analysis shows that such an increase is due to the positive impact of the European regional policy on job market opportunities as well as the improvement of public goods supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than often, studies explaining migration causes centre on economic explanations and minimize other factors' explanatory power. This research aims at creating a comprehensive model of migration determinants taking into account four dimensions: economic, social, cultural, and digital. A path model consisting of these dimensions was created and estimated through partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS‐SEM). The PLS‐path model was applied to Romanian migration flows to 21 EU member states during 2007–2017. The findings indicate that social and technological developments have significant impacts on migration flows and that digital distance has a full mediation effect on the relationship between cultural distance and migration flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]