Regional policy and Spain infrastructure and education as instruments of regional policy: evidence from Spain Governments have often tried to influence the regional distribution of economic activity through supply-side measures such as investment in training and infrastructure. Using evidence from Spain, we examine whether such policies can have an impact and whether they have done so in the past. Our results indicate that disparities in the stocks of human and public capital account for a third of observed regional inequality, about evenly split between the two factors. Hence public investment can in principle be used to reduce regional disparity. Its actual impact, however, will depend both on its overall volume and on the extent to which its regional allocation does indeed vary with regional need. In Spain, investment in infrastructure has made only a small contribution to regional convergence, primarily because it has not in practice been allocated to redistribute across regions to any great extent. In contrast, EFRD transfers have clearly been allocated among regions with redistribution in mind. The impact of the Fund has been significant, but it has been limited by the relatively small size of the programme. — Angel de la Fuente and Xavier Vives