Measuring the effects of European Regional Policy on economic growth: A regression discontinuity approach

Given the increasing share of the EU budget devoted to Regional Policy, several studies have tried to identify the impact of structural funds on economic growth. However, so far no consensus has been reached. We assess Regional Policy effects through a non-experimental comparison group method, the regression discontinuity design, and a novel regional dataset for the 1994–2006 period. We exploit the allocation rule of EU transfers by comparing...