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Only a few studies have analysed the relationship between intraregional inequality and growth, although several studies have measured inequality at the regional level. The objective of this paper is to analyse the relationship between income (wage) inequality and economic growth in different regions of Mexico. We also try to identify factors that explain the variation of intra-regional inequality across Mexican regions and over time. Using macroeconomic databases and publicly available microdata, we apply techniques used in the fields of statistics and econometrics to obtain robust evidence on the relationship between growth and inequality. Our aim is to provide policy recommendations to support the design and implementation of growth-promoting measures thatavoid the exclusion of certain social groups. This paper provides reasons to use a spatial approach and an analysis of particular regions to avoid «one size fits all» policy recommendations.

This paper evaluates whether the learning mechanisms of the European Cohesion policy have contributed to improve the economic impact of Structural Fund expenditure over time. It analyses whether the evolution of the policy in response to greater internal monitoring and external scrutiny has resulted in a more efficient and better targeted Cohesion policy. This is tested using an econometric model which evaluates the effect of Structural Fund expenditure on the growth of regional GDP per capita —conditional on factor endowments, institutional quality and initial conditions— during the last programming periods for which full sets of data are available (1994-1999 and 2000-2006). The results of the analysis unveil an increase in the effectiveness of the policy in successive periods. This positive association is robust to controlling for the level of development of the country and the relative economic position of a region within a country. The results also show that, when structural factors are taken into consideration, Structural Fund investment tends to yield higher returns in better-off countries and wealthier regions within countries

The model proposed in this paper characterizes economic developmentas a three-phase process that involves: 1) non-market exogenous factors suchas territory, amenities, tolerance, diversity, artists and University, which attractand produce talent; 2) talent that leads to the production of innovation and technology;and, 3) the combination of exogenous factors with talent, innovation andtechnology, which generates economic production. The process basically consistsin that non-market exogenous factors such as territorial, cultural, institutional,regional factors together with diversity and University influence the productionand attraction of talent, which in turn influences the production of innovation and technology and, lastly, the right combination of the previous factors generateseconomic production.

In this paper the monitoring of the Lisbon Strategy is analysed. In orderto do that, in a first stage a summary of the Lisbon Strategy is made, with ananalysis of its objectives, list of structural indicators and an overall evaluation. Abrief summary is made on the relaunch of the Agenda and on its consequences on thereform of the Cohesion Policy. In a second stage, we develop an analysis of the structuralindicators evolution against general economic background indicators both atcross section and temporal dimensions, focusing on economic growth. In this sense,the analysis made by the Commission is complemented with a discussion about theimplications that the evolution of these indicators may have on economic growth.This would provide a richer explanation on the role that these aspects are having inEU development and growth.

In this paper we present a new assessment of the effects of fiscal policy on economic growth, focusing on the role of public expenditure. Starting from a theoretical model where only those public expenditure items strictly presumed to influence the production process (i.e., public capital and transfers) are incorporated into the production function, we provide an empirical application for the case of the Spanish regions during the period 1967-1995. The results confirm the positive effect on growth from both public capital and transfers, being relatively more intense that of public capital for the more productive regions, and that of transfers for the less productive ones.