EU Regional Policy Effectiveness and the Role …
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the role of the territory on the development of regions, i.e., on the overall contexts
in which policies are implemented.
The next section will discuss the conceptual and methodological approach
adopted, with a clear explanation of what is meant by “territorial capital” and how
it could be related to Cohesion Policy. The other sections will summarize the results
of the study of the three issues defined above.
2 Territorial Capital and EU Regional Policy
The identification of the sources of endogenous local development is one of the main
issues of regional economics. Human capital, physical infrastructures and social
capital are all examples of single territorial assets having been proved to positively
affect prosperity. A comprehensive and general approach to this topic, however,
requires a coherent and exhaustive classification of all potential endogenous sources
of development.
In this perspective, OECD (2001) firstly introduced the concept of territorial capital, defined as the system of territorial assets having economic, cultural, social and
environmental nature. In order to succeed, regions and territories have to exploit the
potential of this complex set of locally based factors. Camagni (2008) provided a
taxonomy for these elements, based on the dimensions of materiality and rivalry.
Instead of providing just a list of local assets, this approach explicitly defines their
properties, allowing to identify potential interactions and policy implication.
The taxonomy is reported in Fig. 1, showing how territorial capital includes very
different assets, from physical infrastructures (box a) to human capital (box f) to
social capital (box d).
This classification of regional assets was chosen to study the relationship between
regional characteristics and the implementation of Cohesion Policy. The idea that the
local context of implementation mediates the effects of EU regional policy is not new
in literature. In fact, some studies tested, for example, whether policy effectiveness
is higher in more developed regions (Cappelen et al. 2003) or in areas with highquality institutions (Rodríguez-Pose and Garcilazo 2015). The innovative aspect of
the approach of the research group, however, relies on its ability to consider, at the
same time, the whole set of territorial characteristics, and therefore their joint effect
on the outcome of Cohesion Policy.
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the role of the territory on the development of regions, i.e., on the overall contexts
in which policies are implemented.
The next section will discuss the conceptual and methodological approach
adopted, with a clear explanation of what is meant by “territorial capital” and how
it could be related to Cohesion Policy. The other sections will summarize the results
of the study of the three issues defined above.
2 Territorial Capital and EU Regional Policy
The identification of the sources of endogenous local development is one of the main
issues of regional economics. Human capital, physical infrastructures and social
capital are all examples of single territorial assets having been proved to positively
affect prosperity. A comprehensive and general approach to this topic, however,
requires a coherent and exhaustive classification of all potential endogenous sources
of development.
In this perspective, OECD (2001) firstly introduced the concept of territorial capital, defined as the system of territorial assets having economic, cultural, social and
environmental nature. In order to succeed, regions and territories have to exploit the
potential of this complex set of locally based factors. Camagni (2008) provided a
taxonomy for these elements, based on the dimensions of materiality and rivalry.
Instead of providing just a list of local assets, this approach explicitly defines their
properties, allowing to identify potential interactions and policy implication.
The taxonomy is reported in Fig. 1, showing how territorial capital includes very
different assets, from physical infrastructures (box a) to human capital (box f) to
social capital (box d).
This classification of regional assets was chosen to study the relationship between
regional characteristics and the implementation of Cohesion Policy. The idea that the
local context of implementation mediates the effects of EU regional policy is not new
in literature. In fact, some studies tested, for example, whether policy effectiveness
is higher in more developed regions (Cappelen et al. 2003) or in areas with highquality institutions (Rodríguez-Pose and Garcilazo 2015). The innovative aspect of
the approach of the research group, however, relies on its ability to consider, at the
same time, the whole set of territorial characteristics, and therefore their joint effect
on the outcome of Cohesion Policy.