Resumen de Regional Development Di_erentials in Europe: An Empirical Analysis using Lisbon Strategy Targets

Pedro Pascual Arzoz, Manuel Rapún Gárate, José Vicente Ríos

• This paper investigates regional development dynamics in a sample of 263 NUTS-2 European Union regions, over the period 2000-2010. To that end, we use the set of indicators included in the Regional Lisbon Index developed by Dijkstra (2010).

  Regional Lisbon Index indicators are related to an action and economic development plan for the EU regions that includes employment, education and R&D targets.

  Originally, the Regional Lisbon Index had the aim of improving the methodology used by the several Lisbon Agenda monitoring platforms. Later, it became part of the programming of the European Regional Policy. In this research we analyze Lisbon Agenda achievements and the emergence of disparities among regions in their path towards a knowledge-based economy. The analysis of regional disparities in development outcomes is based on spatial panel data models and non-parametric techniques. The main nding of this research is that Europe is experiencing a clear divergence and polarization process in terms of regional development.