European integration and its effects on population in border and peripheral regions
European integration and its effects on population in border and peripheral regions

Summary/Abstract: This paper contributes to the literature that explores the effects of European integration, providing new evidence about its impact on population distribution in the EU28 regions (NUTS 3 level) during the period 2000-2018. The main objectives are to explore the effects of the recent three EU enlargements on the growth in population share within the border regions and to compare the behaviour between core and peripheral regions. We use an empirical difference-in-difference approach. The findings show that border regions experienced positive effects on growth in population share since EU integration, but it did not completely reverse their relative population decline. At the same time, the process of European integration seems to have aggravated the demographic decline of EU peripheral regions compared to the EU core regions. Moreover, for the regions that are both border and peripheral, the EU integration effect has been stronger than in border only regions.

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