European Union Cohesion Policy: Socio‑Economic Vulnerability of the Regions and the COVID‑19 Shock
Metadata
Show full item recordEditorial
Springer
Materia
Cohesion policy Composite indicator Government expenditure Multilevel modeling Socio-economic vulnerability Sustainable development
Date
2022-11-18Referencia bibliográfica
Sánchez, A., Jiménez-Fernández, E. European Union Cohesion Policy: Socio-Economic Vulnerability of the Regions and the COVID-19 Shock. Applied Research Quality Life (2022). [https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-022-10116-1]
Sponsorship
Universidad de Granada/CBUA; project ERDF-University of Granada B-SEJ-242.UGR20Abstract
The European Union Cohesion Policy for the period 2021–2027 focuses on five
goals to make the European Union smarter, greener, more connected, more social
and closer to citizens. However, a macroeconomic index is proposed as the predominant
criterion for allocating the Structural Funds among regions. In this paper,
we hypothesise that it is possible to take into account new, complementary criteria
that better reflect citizens’ quality of life. To that end, we build a composite index
of socio-economic vulnerability for the 233 regions. The results show that following
our multidimensional approach for allocating the Structural Funds, there are
remarkable differences in the maps of priority regions. In addition, the COVID-
19 pandemic represents a threat to well-being. Are all regions equally exposed to
COVID-19 in terms of their socio-economic vulnerability? To address this issue, we
estimate multilevel models which indicate that country characteristics interact with
regions’ characteristics to alter patterns of vulnerability. More specifically, increases
in government expenditures in education and an improvement in political stability
would reduce the regional vulnerability or foster the capacity for resilience, whereas
increases in poverty would be associated with greater vulnerability. Likewise, more
vulnerable regions would be the most exposed to the negative socio-economic
effects of COVID-19. However, it is remarkable that several regions of Sweden and
Finland would be among the group of regions whose socio-economic vulnerability
would be the most negatively affected.