Carolina Foglia (p), Maria Laura Parisi, Nicola Pontarollo

Carlos Mendez

In 2018, 101.1 million of EU citizens were over 65, nearly 20% of the total population, which will become 28.5% in 2050. Ageing population poses challenges not only for welfare systems sustainability, but also in terms of suitability of goods and services that should be adapted to the needs of older people, the so-called Silver Economy. In this paper, using representative microdata for 83 European cities, we assess their suitability for the elderly and which of the factors identified by the mainstream literature contribute more to it. To achieve this aim, on the subset of over 65, we build a dichotomous dependent variable identifying if a city is (or is not) a good place to live for elderly people, and a set of covariates falling into the following macro areas: i) development of an age-friendly built environment; ii) knowledge for an active and healthy lifestyle; iii) integrated care services and improved connectivity; iv) olderpreneurship. We assess the relative contribution of each regressor to the explaindvariance. Our results have several policy implications. First, ranking cities according to their suitability to old people’s wellbeing is important to identify relevant patterns in Europe. Second, the recognition of the relative importance of each regressor, together with its significance and sign, provides a powerful tool to assess each the macro area of intervention, and its components, directing policymakers to adopt the right measures according to local needs.

Uwe Neumann (p), Christoph M. Schmidt

Carolina Foglia

see extended abstract

Carlos Mendez (p), Ugur Ursavas

Uwe Neumann

This paper studies regional income convergence and its conditioning factors across 81 provinces in Turkey over the 2007-2019 period. Through the lens of a non-linear dynamic factor model, we first test the hypothesis that all provinces would eventually converge to a common long-run equilibrium. We reject this hypothesis and find that the provincial dynamics of income per capita are characterized by multiple convergence clubs. The identification of these clubs and their spatial distribution provide a detailed characterization of the regional east-west divide of Turkey. Next, we evaluate the conditioning factors behind club formation and pay particular attention to the role of spatial dependence and geographical spillovers. Our results indicate that spatial dependence and spillovers across provinces play an important role in the formation of convergence clubs.The spatial distribution of the convergence clubs has a clear spatial pattern, and the dynamics of the provincial income distribution appear spatially integrated. That is, in the evolution of the income distribution, there are significant synchronous co-movements between a region and its neighbours. These spatial co-movements are more frequent in middle-income provinces. Finally, we show that the performance of geographical neighbors affects the probability of club membership not only through income spillovers but also through regional investment and net migration.