Although the EU is growing ever closer as a single economic entity the difference in wealth
and economic power among its member nations - from Germany and France to Romania and Bulgaria -
is still enormous. This is despite the European Union's continuous efforts to reduce welfare
differences between its member states since its foundation in 1958: The long-term objective of
the EU is a convergence of income and GDP per capita levels within the entire Union. This
policy is known as European cohesion policy which nowadays accounts for more than one third of
the EU's total budget. The vast financial importance of the cohesion policy naturally begs two
questions: Are structural funds effective in promoting economic growth? And if so do they
promote income and welfare convergence within the EU? Yet most studies so far have merely
yielded fragmented results as they only focus on single EU member states or consist of data
for short time periods. In contrast this study captures long-term effects of structural funds
in the recent past and delivers accurate and meaningful empirical results. It focuses on data
for the European Regional Development Fund since this is the most important item of cohesion
policy which financially supports projects that aim to foster convergence directly. In this
book: - European cohesion policy - structural funds - European Regional Development Fund -
economic convergence - Solow-Model - growth theory
