Projects carried out by our company
Cambridge Econometrics regularly undertakes research for the European Commission, in particular Eurostat and DG Regional Policy. To promote wider dissemination of this work, we make available the final reports of the research projects where permission has been granted by the client commissioning the work. What follows is a brief description of the project and, if available, a downloadable file in Word and/or pdf format.
| Project: | Analysis of the Main Factors of Regional Growth: An in-depth study of the best and worst performing European regions |
| Client: | DG Regio |
| Date: | January 2008 |
In recent years, Governments across Europe have been adopting a more regional
approach to economic policy. At the centre of this approach is the challenge
of designing policies that are appropriate at the local level. To some degree,
the regionalisation of economic policy is a recognition that regional disparities
differ across countries. However, the determinants of growth at the regional level are
hard to identify, making the design of effective policy difficult. However,
the determinants of growth at the regional level are hard to identify, making
the design of effective policy difficult. Many of the studies already in the
field suffer from problems of poor data availability and the endogeneity of
many explanatory variables – both of which make conducting empirically
sound work difficult.This four-year study seeks to bring together the three
aspects of policy, theory and observation to help deepen the understanding
of how they link together and how those regions that have performed relatively
poorly can improve and learn from those that have done relatively well.
| Project: | DG Regio Third Cohesion Report |
| Client: | DG Regio |
| Date: | February 2004 |
This major project for DG Regio provided a chapter in the European Union's
2003 Cohesion Report, the EU's review of the state of European regional
development, together with analysis to support other parts of the report.
The work involved five main tasks. The first was a survey of the literature
on regional competitiveness to help establish a framework for the analysis
and identify and provide links between driving factors, policy instruments,
and key indicators. The second task was to develop a time series databank
with consistent and coherent indicators of regional development, covering
all current member states at NUTS 2 level and many of the candidate
countries at Level 2. Tasks 3 and 4 covered data and econometric analysis,
respectively. The data analysis applied non-technical methods to present
the data and draw associations between output and input indicators,
while the econometric modelling was applied to test these conclusions
more robustly. Task 5 comprised a series of case studies designed to
capture the qualitative aspects of competitive factors, including for
example institutional issues, for which numerical indicators could
not be included in the time series database.
Official Cohesion Report
http://europa.eu.int/
Supporting research
Factors
Underlying Regional Competitiveness PDF format 2Mb
| Project: | DG Enterprise Competitiveness Report 2003 |
| Client: | DG Enterprise |
| Date: | 12 November, 2003 |
This project for DG Enterprise, in collaboration with the Wifo Institute
in Vienna, provided a chapter in its annual series of reports on the
state of European competitiveness. The work performed by Cambridge
Econometrics centred around regional competitiveness and involved three
main tasks. The first was a survey of the literature on regional competitiveness
to help establish a framework for the analysis. Tasks 2 covered the
application of non-technical methods to present the data and draw associations
between output and input indicators, while Task 3 (econometric modelling)
was applied to test these conclusions more robustly.
Downloadable file:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/enterprise_policy/competitiveness/
| Project: | Analysis of Regional Data on Gross Value Added (GVA) |
| Client: | Eurostat |
| Report Date: | September 2000 |
This project contributed to one of the pillars of work being undertaken
by Eurostat task forces. These address the consistency and comparability
of regional measures across EU member states in regional GDP, population,
unemployment and employment. The principal aim of the research was
to explore evidence for systematic changes over time in the structure
of regional GVA (ie the shares of the regions in national GVA). The
work analysed structure at different levels in the hierarchy of Regio
NUTS datasets, and their associated characteristics (eg urban/rural,
fast/slow growing population). Univariate statistical models were used
to assess the significance/existence of trends in the structural data.
The results were presented to the annual meeting of the Regional Accounts
Working Party in Luxembourg.
Downloadable file:
Microsoft Word format 3Mb
PDF Format 4M
| Project: | Regional Competitiveness Indicators |
| Client: | European Commission (DG XVI Regional Policies) |
| Report Date: | September 1998 |
This project established a set of economic indicators currently available
for the NUTS 2 regions of the EU and tested their ability to explain
observed differences in growth in per capita incomes among the regions.
The analysis distinguished indicators that might be influenced by regional
policy (eg infrastructure, education and health) from those over which
policy has less influence (eg industrial structure, peripherality,
R&D activity). Econometric analysis was used to test the relationship
between the values of the various indicators and the actual growth
experience of the regions. Finally, the scale of the influence of the
various factors was shown by undertaking ‘what if’ scenarios
in which a given indicator was set to the European average value for
each region (eg ‘what if Scotland were less peripheral than it
actually is?’). This work was funded by the European Commission
and served as a key input to their Sixth Periodic Report on the Regions.
Downloadable file:
Zipped Microsoft Word
Document 648kb
Papers presented at conferences by our economists
3rd party research based on data provided by Cambridge Econometrics
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email:
Sadia Sheikh
Manager, European Regional Service
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