This book focuses on the questions of how territorial differences in productivity levels and
unemployment rates arise in the first place and why territorial differences in labor market
performance persist over time. Unemployment divergence and unemployment club convergence have
been touched on in a large number of works and have recently also been studied using spatial
econometric analysis. In this book we aim to develop the debate to include several important
new topics such as: the reasons why structural changes in some sectors cause slumps in some
regions but not in others the extent to which agglomeration factors explain regional
imbalances the degree of convergence divergence across EU countries and regions the role of
labor mobility in reducing increasing regional labor market imbalances the impact of EU and
country-level regional policy in stimulating convergence and the (unsatisfactory) role of
active labor market policy in stimulating labor supply in the weakest economic areas.
