Bouvet, Florence. (2007) Labor Productivity, Infrastructure Endowment, and Regional Spillovers in the European Union. In: UNSPECIFIED, Montreal, Canada. (Unpublished)
Abstract
This paper assesses whether disparities in regional public infrastructure endowments can explain regional disparities in labor productivity among European regions. Using a large sample of European regions, I distinguish the effects of overall infrastructure endowment from the effect of three categories of public infrastructure (transport network, energy provision and telecommunication network). When I control for a time trend and regional-specific effects, only the overall infrastructure endowment and telecommunication network boost regional labor productivity. I find evidence of spatial autocorrelation in labor productivity for contiguous regions and regions with identical levels of income per capita. When I control for spatial dependence, only the overall infrastructure index maintains its positive effect on regional productivity. The statistical results do not provide evidence of quantitatively important productivity spillovers.
Actions (login required)