Lionel Védrin (p)

Dante Di Matteo

This paper analyzes the impact of European Cohesion Policy on both regional growth and within regional inequalities. The European Cohesion Policy has been in place for more than thirty years. It has evolved significantly and is now the European main investment policy. Most papers focus on the average effect(s) of the cohesion policy, while this policy is implemented differently across European regions and under very different economic conditions.
To fill these gaps, we extend the literature by considering how the cohesion policy affects both within regional disparities and regional development. Moreover, we introduce to the literature of Cohesion Policy effectiveness two novel indicators respectively related to the issue of rural-urban divide (rural-urban income gap decomposition) and the regional development (composite index to regional development).
By using a sample of 205 NUTS2 EU-25 regions from 2000 to 2014, we combine a regression discontinuity approach with panel data to estimate a causal effect of the Cohesion Policy. We focus our analysis on the Objective 1 (O1) program for several reasons. First, the eligibility of regions to this scheme is underpinned by a rule that remained unchanged since the first design of the policy; a region is assigned to the O1 program if its GDP per capita in purchasing power parity terms is less than 75% of the EU average. Second, the O1 expenditures represent the largest part of the regional policy budget, more than two thirds for any programming period. Last, but not least, the O1 program is designed for the poorest regions and the subsidy rates it proposes is so high that the projects it finances would be very unlikely to exist without the European funds; as such, counterfactual regions are very unlikely to have implemented projects of such magnitude, which allows reliable estimates.

Yoann Morin (p), Martin Regnaud, Marie-Laure Breuillé, Julie Le Gallo

Lionel Védrine

We evaluate the impact of the rent control regulation implemented by the city of Paris since July 2019 on the rental market. We take advantage of the mass of data available
in real time on SeLoger platform with the ads published by professional realtors, with a database of 422,874 observations from January 1, 2018, to July 31, 2022. We apply
a difference-in-differences model, where control units are located in eight major French cities in which the rental market is particularly tense but not regulated during the period
of analysis. We show that the rent control policy decreased rents by 3.2% in Paris on average but that the policy is heterogeneous depending on dwelling characteristics. In
particular, we find that small apartments are more affected by the policy than others.

Giulia Faggio (p)

Yoann Morin

This study evaluates the impact of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) on crime using a novel data set on the total number of BIDs established in England and Wales between 2012-2017. Results indicate that BID areas are, on average, affected by higher levels of crime than other commercial areas, but they experience a drop of 10-11 crimes per quarter following BID formation. The reduction in crime is stronger for shoplifting, anti-social behaviour and public order-related crimes. Effects depends on the intensity of the approach adopted as well as on the amount of resources devoted to crime prevention. The study also provides evidence of diversion effects. As crime declines in BID areas, criminal activity diverts in neighboring commercial areas. Diversion effects are smaller than deterrence effects so that aggregated crime declines.

Gianluigi Coppola (p), Sergio Destefanis

Giulia Faggio

In principle, ESIFs should provide additional inputs to production, accelerate the productivity of private capital and labour, and bring about higher growth and more favourable labour-market outcomes, especially for less developed areas. There is a vast literature on the effectiveness of European regional policy. In most cases, this policy seems to have a positive impact on GDP per capita, but the significance of the results is far from uniform. The policy impact turns out to depend on a series of conditioning factors (see Fratesi and Perucca, 2019; Fratesi, 2020). However, in the literature, the role of interactions among various types of ESIFs has been systematically neglected. Yet, these interactions are a very interesting field of research, especially if related to ESIF types that may be jointly used in policy actions. Already Capello and Kroll (2016) pointed out that the smart specialisation agenda encouraged regions to combine ESF and ERDF expenditures. The survey in Ferry and Kah (2021) confirms that particularly strong interactions are likely to exist between these two funds. This survey however also unveils the potential existence of synergic effects also involving other types of ESIFs. Subsequently in this paper we thoroughly explore the interactions among all types of ESIFs. Our empirical analysis is based on 264 NUTS2-level regions from 28 European countries (including all EU countries plus the UK) throughout 2000–2018.

Dante Di Matteo (p)

Gianluigi Coppola

The National Strategy for the Inner Areas is an Italian place-based program aimed at revitalizing the economic and social vibrancy of lagging municipalities facing remoteness, leveraging on tourism as a key instrument for local development. This paper evaluates the effects of such program on tourism outcomes over the period 2014-2022. Difference-in-differences method is used to estimate the average treatment effect at the municipal level. Overall nights spent have been positively affected by 6% since the subsides’ disbursement begun. Results are largely driven by geographical heterogeneity, with prevailing effects on foreign tourism in northern regions, and predominant effects on domestic tourism in southern regions and islands. The program has also played a part in keeping afloat tourism during the Covid-19 pandemic.