Dr. Debora Gambina (p), Prof. Fabio Mazzola (p), Dr. Pietro Pizzuto

This work evaluates the additionality principle of European structural funds at EU NUTS-2 level across different programming periods, up to the most recent cycles. Existing evidence provides mixed conclusions on whether EU transfers complement or substitute domestic public spending. The debate on the additionality of cohesion funds has re-emerged in light of recent economic crises, which may have led national and regional governments to use cohesion funds to replace domestic fiscal expenditure under budgetary constraints and austerity policies, and in view of the simultaneous implementation of NGEU during the 2021-27 cohesion policy programming. We investigate the dynamic impact of cohesion policy expenditures on domestic public spending and the sources of heterogenous effects (based for example on different business cycle position and typology of funds). The empirical strategy employs the local projection approach (Jorda, 2005) which allows to estimate impulse-response functions and flexible modelling of heterogeneous and nonlinear dynamics across regional characteristics. Instrumental variables methods are applied to identify plausibly exogenous variation in cohesion policy expenditures. Our work provides relevant insights regarding the introduction of the additionality principle in the forthcoming 2028-34 cohesion policy cycle and has implications also for Next Generation EU, whose spending may have displaced public investments.

Prof. Francesco Pigliaru (p)

Over the last decades, European Union cohesion policy has been shaped by the principles of place-based policies, with outcomes often seen as falling short of expectations. The post-pandemic response has introduced a more centralized governance design (e.g., NGEU), reopening the debate on which institutional architecture is best suited to sustain territorial convergence. This paper situates that debate in the context of the rapid advance of generative AI, which may raise productivity in automatable tasks while simultaneously reshaping the economic value of human skills in tasks that remain non-automatable.
To study these changes, we adopt a task-based framework due to Jones and Tonetti (2026) inspired by the “weak links” logic of O-ring production (Kremer, 1993): production processes are made of many complementary tasks, with a low elasticity of substitution across tasks. Put differently, tasks are not easily replaceable with one another: weak performance in some steps can drag down aggregate output even when other steps are highly efficient. Within each task, however, technology (capital/AI) and human labour are perfect substitutes: a task is performed by whichever input delivers it at lower cost, and advances in AI tend to expand the set of tasks for which technology is economically viable.
In this setting, territorial heterogeneity—human capital, institutional quality, innovative capacity, and adoption capabilities—can generate different trajectories both in the speed at which territories automate “automatable” tasks and in the productivity of tasks that remain structurally human. As a result, AI can trigger convergence or divergence dynamics: on the one hand, automation may relax bottlenecks; on the other, it may increase the relative weight of non-automatable tasks, making deficits in skills and organization more damaging in lagging territories.
The paper’s contribution is to clarify the mechanisms through which AI may widen or narrow regional gaps and to discuss the implications for policy design: when the priority should be strengthening local adoption capabilities and skills in residual tasks, and when more centralized coordination may be more effective in preserving the goal of territorial cohesion.

Dr. Cristina García-Nicolás (p), Dr. Encarnación Murillo-García

Next Generation EU (NGEU) represents a major innovation in the European Union’s economic governance, both because of its exceptional and temporary nature and because of its institutional design. Through the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), NGEU introduces a performance-oriented intervention logic based on milestones and targets, with disbursements conditional on results and a strong thematic concentration of investments. While this approach enabled a rapid response to the economic consequences of the COVID-19 crisis, it also raises important questions from a territorial and governance perspective.
This paper analyses the interaction between NGEU and EU cohesion policy, traditionally grounded in a long-term, place-based framework centred on ex ante allocation, additionality, partnership and multilevel governance. The coexistence of both instruments during the 2021–2027 programming period creates a policy environment in which different intervention logics operate simultaneously. From this perspective, NGEU can be interpreted as a stress test for cohesion policy, as it challenges its core principles and highlights potential tensions between performance orientation and territorial sensitivity.

Using Spain as a case study, the paper examines how NGEU interacts with a highly decentralised governance structure. Drawing on data on the territorial allocation and implementation of RRF and REACT-EU funds, combined with regional socio-economic indicators at the NUTS-2 level, the analysis identifies patterns in fund absorption and implementation speed.
Preliminary findings suggest that territorial outcomes are closely linked to regional administrative capacity. In the absence of explicit territorial allocation criteria, implementation dynamics may risk reinforcing existing disparities. These results underline the need to strengthen coherence between performance-based instruments and territorial approaches, reinforce regional capacity, and preserve multilevel governance in the post-2027 reform of cohesion policy.