Evaluation of EU Regional Policy using Satellite Data

Tasks

On behalf of the Bertelsmann Foundation, the project examines the effects of EU regional and structural policy (European Regional Development Fund, ERDF, and Cohesion Fund) on regional development in Europe. Various studies have attempted to understand whether EU regional and structural policy actually leads to more growth in the regions receiving EU-support. However, the evidence for this is mixed so far. In this project a new approach will be developed in which the effects of the subsidy policy will not be investigated on the level of NUTS2 or NUTS3 regions as before, but on the much more subtle community level. In the project this approach will be tested for a selected pilot region in the border region between Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic. Two data sources will be used. First, for the first time, we have funding data at the municipal level (via cooperation with the wifo Vienna). Secondly, we use satellite data (in cooperation with the DLR) to record the economic development of these municipalities. In particular, we make use of the night light mission. The background is that there are no variables on economic activity at the community level, so that such an analysis has not been possible so far. Therefore, our approach enables us to measure the economic impact of funded projects and political measures of any kind on a spatial level in a much more detailed way than was previously possible.