Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/162836 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
Arbeitspapier No. 02/2017
Publisher: 
Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der Gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, Wiesbaden
Abstract: 
This study introduces a new firm-level dataset containing over two million projects co-funded by the European Union's (EU) structural and Cohesion funds in 25 EU member states in the multi-annual financial framework 2007-2013. Information on individual beneficiary firms and institutions published by regional authorities is linked with business data from Bureau van Dijk's ORBIS database. Moreover, we show how modern text mining techniques can be used to categorise EU funded projects into fifteen thematic categories proposed by the European Commission. A first analysis of the dataset reveals substantial heterogeneity of beneficiaries and projects across and within countries. While in the majority of lagging regions the largest project expenditure is dedicated to transportation and energy infrastructure, in most other regions the major part is assigned to innovation and technological development as well as business (including SME) support. In an econometric analysis we control for project and firm characteristics and find that the highest single project values are associated with older beneficiary firms that are larger in size. Furthermore, the projects with topmost expenditure are carried out in Dutch and British regions.
Subjects: 
Distribution of EU structural funds
Regional policy
Firm-level data
Cohesion
European Union
JEL: 
E61
H77
R11
R58
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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