Migration and regional convergence in the European Union

Abstract

We offer an empirical, econometric analysis of the impact of migration on the EU27’s NUTS2 regions in the period 2000–2007. We find that migration had no significant impact on regional unemployment in the EU, but affected both GDP per capita and productivity. A 1 percentage point increase in immigration to immigration regions increased GDP per capita by about 0.02 % and productivity by about 0.03 % on impact and by 0.44 % for GDP per capita and 0.20 % for productivity in the long run. For emigration regions an increase in the emigration rate leads to similar reductions of GDP per capita and productivity both on impact and in the long run. Since immigration regions are often regions with above average GDP, while emigration regions in Europe practically all have below average GDP, migration does not seem to promote convergence.