Impact of EU Regional Policy in Austria: A Preliminary Analysis

No empirical evidence has so far been collected on the quantitative effects of EU structural fund programmes in Austria. The present analysis, by its very nature a pilot study, is thus the first attempt to shed light on this important issue. Using a small regional scale, we analysed systematic differences between regions that had received structural fund money after 1995 and those that did not. Next, state-level models were used to simulate economy-wide effects of regional subsidies to obtain a first direct estimate of their quantitative impact at a regional and sectoral level.