Development and cohesion in Spanish regions. An analysis before and after the Great Recession

Abstract

Regional cohesion has been one of the European Union's objectives since its origins. Its strategies and implementations have been modified over time, adjusting to the incorporation of new members and to different economic cycles. To gain more knowledge about the impact of cohesion policies, we use the Lisbon Regional Index, a synthetic indicator that brings together the global objectives of the Lisbon Strategy, that includes simple indicators of employment, training and research, development and innovation expenditures of the regions. The evolution of this Index over time gives the possibility of dynamic analysis and enables comparing the values of synthetic index for all the years of the considered period. Thereby, the development and cohesion on the Spanish regions can be evaluated, and it is verified how cohesion has improved in Spain in the expansive period (2000-2007) and how the Great Crisis has caused a regression of cohesion, affecting to a greater extent the regions "in transition" and "less developed", reaching levels prior to 2000. The next period (2014-2019) shows important signs of positive trend recovery.