Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/228479 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
LIS Working Paper Series No. 760
Version Description: 
Revised in December 2020
Publisher: 
Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), Luxembourg
Abstract: 
Economic inequality has increased in many EU countries in the last decades. Yet, efforts assessing economic disparities across the EU regions mostly concentrate on convergence in average per capita incomes, offering little evidence on how regional income is distributed. Using data from Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) over the 1989-2013 period, this study contributes to fill this gap, focussing on whether there has been convergence of income inequality among EU regions, and on to what extent regional initial conditions and the Cohesion Policy funds affect the convergence process. Cross-section and panel convergence regressions, after a number of robustness checks, offer three findings. First, NUTS2 regions are converging to higher level of income inequality, so becoming equally more unequal. Second, this process is significantly faster when regions share similar structural characteristics, such as similar levels of governance quality. Finally, in regions eligible for Cohesion Policy funds the pace of inequality convergence has been significantly faster, suggesting therefore that they may be driving the convergence process.
Subjects: 
Inequality
Income distribution
Convergence
Cohesion Policy
European Union
JEL: 
O15
O52
D31
P48
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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