European Funds and Regional Convergence: From the European Context to the Italian Scenario

The inclusive economic growth and the territorial cohesion represent the central points of the EU agenda. The regional funds are the main European Regional Policy aimed to increase the employment levels in the Union and to reduce the territorial divides between the backward and forward regions. This work aims to verify the effectiveness of 2007–2013 EU funding by means of the Difference-in-Differences regression on official data referring to European NUTS-2 regions. The aim is twofold. First, we verify whether the regional funds narrowed employment disparities in the European context. Second, we focus on Italy as one of the largest beneficiary countries of funds. The results suggest a general ineffectiveness of funds across the European countries and an even worst scenario in Italy. The quality of institutions, the fund management by the national and regional governments and the monitoring activities are the main causes of failure of regional policies in Italy.