Ulrike Stierle-von Schütz, Department of Public Economics
RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany, Michael H. Stierle, European Commission, DG ECFIN, Auderghem, Belgium
Concentration and Specialisation in an Enlarged EU (assigned to theme
Economic theories, be it (new) trade, (new) growth or (new) economic geography, are far from being able to predict changing patterns of regional concentration of sectors or specialisation of regions. Consequently, empirical work should shed more light on possible enlargement effects, both in new and old Member States of the European Union. However, studies including new Member States are still rare. This analysis applies a relatively new data set (1995 – 2001) including all economic activities with a more detailed sectoral breakdown for services and covering 242 NUTS2 regions of both, old and new EU Member States. Generally speaking, for the incumbent Member States differences from other studies are rather minor and overall, strong movements of indicators could not be observed. In contrast, in the Recently Acceded Member States (RAMS) considerable shifts of most indicators show up. Despite a converging trend in regional specialisation and various similarities with old Member States, some major differences still persist. Among these are high concentration indicators of most private services as well as of mining and quarrying.
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