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This paper estimates the impact of public investment on regional economic growth and convergence at the NUTS 3 level in Greece. Using a new database of public expenditure per region for the period 1978-2007, it proposes a model which captures not just the impact of public investment in Greek prefectures, but also the spillover effects related to the existence of externalities from neighbouring regions. The results point to a positive long-run impact of public investment per capita on regional economic growth - but not on convergence - which also generates considerable spillover effects. However, the returns vary according to different types of public investment, with education and infrastructure spillovers having the highest impact. In general, public investment externalities seem to be more relevant for regional growth than direct public investment in each region. Finally, the impact of different types of public investment in Greece is mediated by politics and political factors, but the effect of politics disappears once we control for political-period-specific spatial-invariant variables. Resumen Este artículo estima el impacto de la inversión pública en el crecimiento económico regional y la convergencia a nivel NUTS 3 en Grecia. Haciendo uso de una nueva base de datos de gasto público por región para el periodo 1978-2007, se propone un modelo que identifica no solamente el impacto de la inversión pública en las prefecturas griegas, sino también los efectos de spillover relacionados con la existencia de externalidades procedentes de regiones vecinas. Los resultados apuntan a un impacto positivo a largo plazo de la inversión pública per cápita en el crecimiento económico regional - pero no en la convergencia - el cual genera unos efectos de spillover considerables. Sin embargo, los retornos varían de acuerdo con los diferentes tipos de inversión pública, siendo la educación y los spillovers de infraestructura los de mayor impacto. En general, las externalidades de inversión pública parecen tener una mayor relevancia para el crecimiento regional que la inversión pública directa en cada región. Para terminar, el impacto de los diferentes tipos de inversión pública en Grecia se ve influido por sus políticas y otros factores políticos, pero el efecto de las políticas desaparece una vez que se controlan las variables espacialmente-invariantes de tipo político ligadas a un periodo específico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the 2001 income mosaic of Greece at the local level. It constructs a model based on occupational, territorial, and demographic factors to isolate their impact on declared income and study clusters of income at the disaggregated territorial level. The new cluster-based spatial specification provides a better econometric fit compared to the specification based on the existing official regional framework. This suggests that the economy does not operate according to the country's administrative divisions, but rather according to local-specific factors and transportation linkages, as is the case in a fragmented land united by its transportation network. Accordingly, if income disparities are larger within rather than between administrative regions, regional economic development policy might best be conducted within a functional-area framework rather than the current administrative-region framework. These findings entail important policy implications for EU regional development and resource allocation, and are also useful in additional tentative policy proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at mapping and analyzing the determinants of industrial activity in Greek regions in order to assess current investment patterns. For this purpose, we estimate a conditional logit model of 226 new established firms for 1996 and 1997. Results give interesting insights that are likely of particular importance to regional policy makers. Noteworthy is the spatial concentration of firms in different prefectures while the large metropolitan cities, Athens and Thessalonica, although with declining shares, prevail as the dominant hosts. European regional policy seems to enhance firms’entry via its effect on economic development variables, in contrast with the Greek Development Law, which turns out non-influential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]