A regional perspective of the Common Agricultural Policy.

Abstract: Regional convergence is one of the major goals of the European Union. In this paper, the intention is to address the question of whether, during the period 1995–2004 the NUTS-2 regions of EU-27 exhibited a tendency to converge in terms of agricultural labour productivity. A low annual rate of absolute convergence is estimated for the NUTS-2 regions over the period 1995–2004. The rate of regional convergence exhibits a considerable variation across different territorial divisions of the European Union. The implications of these results are discussed in the context of the Common Agricultural Policy and respective recommendations are issued. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]