Texture or Patchwork: Which kind of regional policy should we prefer?

Abstract

There is two different ways to improve the economic performance of a region or a country. The one way is to enhance the solidarity and the other way is to further the competitiveness. The development based on solidarity is a texture-like the development based on the competitiveness is a patchwork-like regional policy. The paper investigates the consequences is called a patchwork-like regional development among the European countries. The simulation of the regional development shows that the patchwork-like development is more effective than the texture-like development measured with the average and the standard deviation of the GDP per capita. The simulation is made with the data of the EU-25 countries from 2000 and 2003 in the
period of ten years.