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The regions of the European Union are currently experiencing a period of seismic change that has transformed their established voting patterns and increased anti–European Union voting. Applying objective economic measures, spatial econometrics and municipal voting data from recent elections and a referendum, this study examines the factors shaping anti–European Union votes in Greece. The results indicate a strong link between the country’s changing economic geography and the geography of the anti–European Union vote, providing evidence not only of the ‘geography of discontent’ and the ‘left-behind hypothesis’ but also of the ‘geography of austerity’ associated with the heterogeneous effects of fiscal consolidation and austerity policies.

The paper brings together two distinct strands of literature that discuss the process of convergence in the EU and the impact of public debt on growth. It makes a contribution to both literatures, ...

The recent COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic downturn due to the lockdown of economic activities have spurred a lively debate concerning their effects across locations in the EU and the resulting challenges to territorial cohesion policy. The COVID-19 emergency not only has provoked EU cohesion policy responses but also may change some of the basic principles on which these policies have been built. This paper briefly casts light on some present and future implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for two fundamental aspects of territorial cohesion policy, namely urbanization and economic agglomeration. Both aspects are linked to territorial cohesion's significant dimension of polycentricity (as balanced and harmonious development), and together they constitute a challenge to established norms of urban agglomeration. Finally, the paper discusses some policy ideas that have recently (re)appeared on the European policy landscape. Such policy options bring together urban development and regional policy agendas with the aim of promoting territorial cohesion by attempting to solve the `urban paradox' - the coexisting positive and negative effects of urban agglomeration and its established geography.

The austerity measures and structural reforms that Greece had to undertake since 2010 in exchange for financial aid divided the Greek political system into pro-austerity and anti-austerity camps. These divisions reached a climax with the July 2015 referendum. The paper attempts to assess the extent that to which the geographic patterns that emerged in voting were due to the differentiated economic regional impact of economic crisis. Using economic voting theory as a benchmark, and employing spatial econometric methods, the study contributes to a largely ignored topic, known as geographies of economic voting, providing new and valuable insights for an under-researched time period.

The most prominent ‘victim’ of the global financial crisis in 2007/2008 has been Greece, which is, even now, in the middle of an economic and social storm that is threatening its economic and social cohesion and its membership of the Eurozone. Using the social well-being conceptual framework as a benchmark and exploiting the literature of composite indicators, the paper aims to assess and measure the regional impact of the crisis in a systematic and comprehensive way. Differing from most of previous studies, both at national and international levels, this study is based on the assumption that the effects of the crisis go far beyond economics and create a social crisis strongly associated with significant human and social costs that might transform Greece’s regional status and threaten its regional well-being, probably in a very unequal way. The main finding of the analysis is that although all regions were severely affected by the dynamics and intensity of the crisis, some regions were more affected than others, leading to ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. From a policy point of view, the results of this study have serious implications for crisis management, recovery policy actions and a country’s social cohesion, especially in Greece where austerity policy measures not only imposed considerable cutbacks in regional development policies but also ignored the spatial dimension of the crisis.

The ‘at-risk-of-poverty’ rate is the most widely recognised indicator of income poverty. Its principal advantage is that it is relatively straightforward to define and (given appropriate data) to calculate. National at-risk-of-poverty rates play a key role in monitoring EU2020 objectives relating to combating poverty. Regional patterns of poverty have the potential to deepen our understanding of processes of impoverishment and differentiation, and how they can be more effectively addressed by policy. Estimating regional poverty rates, and especially producing a European map, is a challenging task, given current data resources. This paper begins by placing the at-risk-of-poverty rate within the wider conceptual context relating to poverty, social exclusion and deprivation. It then provides an account of an exercise to map at-risk-of-poverty rates at NUTS 3 across 20 European countries. Together with data derived from national registers (where available) and more direct apportionment methods, coverage of most of Western Europe is achieved. The patterns revealed are described, and generalisations, which serve as pointers to further research on the processes responsible, are derived. The paper concludes with some reflections on the value of regional at-risk-of-poverty rates in advancing our understanding of the distribution and causes of poverty, and hence appropriate interventions to ameliorate it.

The opioid epidemic is an escalating health crisis. We evaluated the impact of opioid prescription rates and socioeconomic determinants on opioid mortality rates, and identified potential differences in prescription patterns by categories of practitioners. We combined the 2013 and 2014 Medicare Part D data and quantified the opioid prescription rate in a county level cross-sectional study with data from 2710 counties, 468,614 unique prescribers and 46,665,037 beneficiaries. We used the CDC WONDER database to obtain opioid-related mortality data. Socioeconomic characteristics for each county were acquired from the US Census Bureau. The average national opioid prescription rate was 3.86 claims per beneficiary that received a prescription for opioids (95% CI 3.86–3.86). At a county level, overall opioid prescription rates (p

The aim of the article is to examine, for the first time to our knowledge, the relationship between the intraregional spatial inequality and the regional income level in the European Union (EU)-27 regions, in the context of the inverted-U hypothesis. Although this hypothesis might exist not only at the intranational but also at the intraregional level, the empirical consideration of the latter has been largely ignored. This is quite surprising because intraregional inequality is a very important issue in regional science literature. The results of the article establish a strong empirical relationship that contradicts the conventional wisdom. In other words, the results imply a U-shaped rather than an inverted U-shaped curve, raising doubts about the adequacy and interpretative power of this hypothesis. Moreover, the acknowledgment of the importance of intraregional inequality in the EU, the empirical evidence of spatial effects in intraregional spatial inequality, and the possibility of a trade-off between the regional income level and intraregional inequalities constitute other important contributions of this article, deriving major economic and political implications. The evidence presented in this article can be used as a building block for future theoretical and empirical work.

Two types of econometric models have typically been used in geographical research: global and local. The former produces parameter estimates that represent an average type of economic behavior; that is, for each variable there is one regression coefficient for the entire sample. The latter suggests that the relationship of interest can vary widely over space allowing the regression parameters to change across spatial entities. Commonly, the regression results obtained from these two different approaches are compared to each other to determine which model performed better. The aim of this paper is twofold. First and foremost, it is to show that a comparison between global and local models is problematic and misleading since it overlooks a critical group of regression models known as regime models. This means that this type of comparison should be extended by including all different regression approaches (i.e. global, local and regime). Sometimes, regime models can perform as well as, or even better, than (more complex) local models and this is something that should be taken into account by empirical geographical studies. Secondly, the paper investigates the convergence process in the regions of the (enlarged) European Union (EU) over the period 1995–2005. The results of this paper show that a regime (convergence) model seems to perform better than any other model employed, implying a very low convergence rate among European regions and highlighting the heterogeneous spatial impact of the EU economic integration process.

Poverty has been a matter of great academic and political concern for decades. In the recent years, the interest has increased considerably at the European Union level because poverty seems to be a relatively persistent phenomenon and a threat to economic prosperity and social cohesion of the Union. The aim of this paper is to assess and map, for the first time, the distribution of poverty at the NUTS III level in Greece, as well as to evaluate and map the regional impact of the ongoing economic crisis on poverty, by comparing the poverty rates before and during the crisis. For this purpose a Small Area Estimation technique is employed in order to estimate poverty rates at low levels of geographical aggregation. Spatial variation is a relatively neglected dimension of poverty analysis and poverty maps that provide a description of the spatial distribution of welfare and poverty within a country at different spatial levels may be a useful tool for policy-making.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate convergence or divergence trends at global scale.Design/methodology/approachThe paper questions the methodology and findings of the conventional convergence literature using linear OLS models. It introduces polynomial (quadratic) weighted least square (WLS) regression analysis to explore whether a number of economic performance indicators follow a non‐linear pattern of change.FindingsThe results indicate the formation of two groups in the world: a convergence one, including countries with low to medium‐high development levels, and a divergence one including countries with medium‐high to very high development levels.Research limitations/implicationsData availability after 1990 (for the composite indicators).Practical implicationsThe findings shed light on important issues, such as the decrease of economic disparities between countries, the prospects for global economic convergence, and the development of a more equal world. Apart from obvious policy implication such findings are also of theoretical significance, providing a basis to check (indirectly) the validity of alternative growth theories.Originality/valueThis is the first paper (to the authors' knowledge) that explores world convergence/divergence employing quadratic WLS regression analysis with a number of economic indicators. WLS regressions enable the removal of the impact of country size on results, whereas non‐linear modelling allows the possibility of multiple equilibria and different development trajectories to be taken into account. Finally, the employment of various economic‐performance indicators (simple and composite) works as a cross‐check of validity for the results provided.

The paper assesses on empirical grounds the level and the evolution of regional inequalities in each European Union new member-state (EU NMS) and examines the possibility for the emergence of regional convergence clubs. The experience of the EU NMS is a unique situation, where relatively closed economic systems opened, almost at once, to the world economy and, at the same time, market mechanisms replaced central planning. Thus, understanding the spatial pattern of regional growth in the EU NMS may provide valuable insight for theory and policy. The application of non linear econometric models, which transcend the "all or nothing" logic behind conventional convergence analysis, has shown the existence of regional convergence clubs in many EU NMS. The identification of regional convergence clubs, irrespective of the pattern that emerges in each EU NMS, highlights the heterogeneous spatial impact of the EU economic integration process.

A plethora of past studies have concluded that unconditional β-convergence is present in a broad sample of regions, implying that poor regions grow faster than rich ones. All these econometric studies tend to overlook the relative importance or size of each region in the national setting, treating all regional observations as equal. However, this assumption might lead to unrealistic or misleading results. Convergence analysis could be more meaningful if it included a weighting mechanism taking into account the size of regions. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether the inclusion of a weighting mechanism in β-convergence analysis, giving more weight to larger regions and less to smaller ones, can result in sharply different implications for the regional convergence-divergence process. For this reason, both unweighted ordinary least squares (OLS) and weighted least squares estimators are used in the analysis of regional (intra-national) convergence within 10 European Union (EU) countries over the period 1990–2000. The comparison between the two methods reveals that when regions are appropriately weighted for their size, intra-national divergence, rather than convergence found with the OLS approach, seems to be the dominant experience in the EU.

Σκοπό της διατριβής αποτελεί η μελέτη και η διερεύνηση της εξέλιξης των οικονομικών ανισοτήτων και επομένως, των τάσεων της σύγκλισης ή απόκλισης στις περιφέρειες της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης των 27 χωρών-μελών κατά τη χρονική περίοδο 1995-2005. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, εξετάζονται οι τάσεις σύγκλισης ή απόκλισης της μεταβλητής του κατά κεφαλήν ΑΕΠ μεταξύ των περιφερειών της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης αλλά και στο εσωτερικό τους. Για την ανάλυση των τάσεων μεταξύ των περιφερειών χρησιμοποιείται το θεωρητικό και εμπειρικό πλαίσιο που πρόσφατα αναπτύχθηκε από τους Barro και Sala-i-Martin (1992, 1995). Για την ανάλυση των τάσεων στο εσωτερικό των περιφερειών χρησιμοποιείται το θεωρητικό και εμπειρικό πλαίσιο που αναπτύχθηκε αρχικά από τον Kuznets (1955) για τις κοινωνικές ανισότητες και επεκτάθηκε από τον Williamson (1965) για τις περιφερειακές ανισότητες. Το πρώτο πλαίσιο ανάλυσης, γνωστό και ως κλασική ανάλυση της σύγκλισης, βασίζεται στο νεοκλασικό υπόδειγμα οικονομικής μεγέθυνσης του Solow (1956) και προβλέπει την παρουσία σύγκλισης μεταξύ ενός σχετικά ομοιογενούς δείγματος οικονομιών. Το δεύτερο, γνωστό και ως υπόθεση του «ανάστροφου U», συσχετίζει το μέγεθος των χωρικών οικονομικών ανισοτήτων χωρών ή περιφερειών με το επίπεδο της οικονομικής τους ανάπτυξης, το οποίο αναμένεται να έχει σχήμα ανάστροφου U. Επομένως, σύγκλιση προβλέπεται αφότου έχει επιτευχθεί ένα κρίσιμο μέγεθος οικονομικής ανάπτυξης. Παρά τις αδυναμίες και τους περιορισμούς, η ανάλυση των τάσεων της σύγκλισης ή απόκλισης με τους παραπάνω τρόπους βρίσκεται στο επίκεντρο της συμβατικής οικονομικής ανάλυσης και έδωσε το έναυσμα για γόνιμες και δημιουργικές συζητήσεις. Για την εμπειρική διερεύνηση εφαρμόζονται στατιστικές και οικονομετρικές τεχνικές ανάλυσης. Σε αντίθεση ωστόσο με το μεγαλύτερο μέρος των ερευνητικών εργασιών, χρησιμοποιούνται στατιστικές και οικονομετρικές τεχνικές χωρικής ανάλυσης, αφού οι χωρικές επιδράσεις θα πρέπει να λαμβάνονται πάντα υπόψη στην ανάλυση της διαδικασίας της σύγκλισης ή απόκλισης. Η παράλειψη ή η αγνόησή τους επιφέρει την εξαγωγή εσφαλμένων και παραπλανητικών συμπερασμάτων. Τα αποτελέσματα της διατριβής παρουσιάζουν ιδιαίτερο ενδιαφέρον τόσο σε επίπεδο θεωρίας όσο και σε επίπεδο πολιτικής.

The European Neighborhood Policy (ENP), launched in 2004, is a unified EU policy framework towards the EU neighboring countries (ENP countries). The objective of the ENP is to strengthen the prosperity, stability and security of the (enlarged) EU and the ENP countries, creating a "ring of friends" around the EU. Currently, the ENP consists of two sub-groups; the ENP East (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) and the ENP South (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia). Even though the ENP is distinct from the process of EU enlargement, the ENP countries operate under conditions of "neighborhood Europeanization". This indicates a misfit between ENP demands, on the one hand, and ENP rewards, on the other. Given this misfit - and the concomitant skepticism about the ENP capacity to transfer EU values and rules to the neighboring countries - deep(er) economic (in particular, trade) integration between the EU economy and the ENP countries is considered to be a catalyst for the success of the ENP undertaking. The objective of the paper is to study the geography (i.e. the size, the composition and the direction) of EU-ENP trade, conducting an in-depth empirical analysis as regards the trade flows (i.e. imports and exports) of the EU and the ENP countries. The paper provides comparative empirical evidence concerning paths of trade integration between the EU and the ENP countries. It does so by undertaking a descriptive statistical and graphical analysis of the findings derived from the estimation of a series of trade indicators. The analysis utilizes trade data derived from the UN COMTRADE database. The analysis covers the period 2000-2010. This period has been selected so as to gauge the latest shifts operated in trade structures as a result of the recent economic and political reforms (evolutions) implemented (took place) in the EU economy (i.e. the euro currency, the eastwards enlargement, the on-going financial and economic crisis) and the ENP countries (i.e. the "color" revolutions, the Arab "spring"), besides the ENP in itself. Trade data refer to the national-sectoral (2-digit SITC classification) level. The sectors included in the analysis grossly belong to the primary and the secondary sector of production and may form groups of activities according to the intensity of the production factors used. Providing a clear picture regarding the geography of EU-ENP trade, the paper offers valuable insight to both (economic integration) theory and policy-making.

The evaluation of regional inequalities and the monitoring of their evolution (regional convergence/divergence analysis) is an issue of extreme interest in the field of regional science as it demonstrates the role of market dynamics and appraises the effectiveness of regional policy. Extending the methodology of (regional) convergence clubs, the paper examines for the existence of convergence clubs, in per capita GDP terms, among the NUTS III regions of Greece during the period 1995-2005. The approach of (regional) convergence clubs relies on recent paradigms of economic growth and indicates the existence of (regional) convergence within (regional) convergence clubs without the precondition of (regional) convergence between those clubs. The findings of the paper do not verify the existence of regional convergence clubs in Greece. In contrast, they reveal clear trends of divergence, (identifying, additionally, sub-clubs of divergence) stressing out the underestimation of the country's regional problem.

Building upon authors’ previous work, the study develops econometric models in order to specify the determinants of knowledge-based economic growth at the international level. In doing so, it differs from other studies in the following ways: it makes use of a new composite indicator of growth which accounts for knowledge capacity, it runs WLS regressions, and it explores the existence of nonlinear relations between determinants and growth. The study confirms previous findings that variables such as investment and FDI are important determinants of growth but adds that geography, agglomerations and institutions play a vital role in economic performance. Furthermore, it indicates that the effect of initial economic conditions, size of government, openness to trade and institutions on growth is nonlinear: up to a critical level, these factors have a positive impact, whereas beyond that the effect diminishes and may become negative. These findings have important implications for both theory and policy.