Synthesis Report - European Commission - Europa

Synthesis Report Ex-post Evaluation of the ERDF 2000-2006
It is difficult to capture the multiplicity of aspects which contribute to well-being, but it is
possible to measure one major dimension at least, which is the income per head of people living
in different regions. Since cohesion policy is concerned with social disparities as well as economic
ones and with maintaining and strengthening social cohesion, it is important to consider
disparities in income levels between regions and how they changed over the programming period.
A key question, therefore, is how far the reduction in regional disparities in GDP per head noted
above was accompanied by a similar reduction in disposable household income per head.
Unfortunately the data available at EU-level to investigate this question are not entirely
satisfactory 17 . The figures presented in Table 2.6, therefore, should be regarded as indicative only
and illustrative of the differences which exist between the series being compared. Moreover, it
should be emphasised that the figures for disposable income per head do not take account of
differences in the access of households to various services and amenities which are paid for out
of taxes, such as childcare facilities as well as education, healthcare and so on. Such access tends
to be much more similar across regions within countries, because they tend to share the same
social protection systems and institutional arrangements, than across countries. Consequently,
the figures in Table 2.6 are indicative of the changes in regional disparities in income per head,
broadly defined, which occurred over the period but less so of the changes which occurred across
the EU as a whole.
Leaving the uncertainty aside, the data suggest that there was indeed a parallel narrowing of
disparities in income per head across regions in the EU15 between 2000 and 2006 in line with the
reduction in disparities in GDP per head. It also suggests that there was equally a narrowing of
disparities in household income per head in the EU10 countries over the period in contrast to the
widening in terms of GDP per head.
2.3.5 Other aspects of well-being and territorial cohesion
While data on income per head give some insight into how one major aspect of social disparities
changed between regions over the programming period, as noted above, they give only a partial
insight. To obtain a fuller picture, there is a need to take account of other aspects of well being
and living standards which are more difficult both to identify indicators for and to find the data
required to attach values to these indicators.
One important aspect in this regard, as also noted above, is access to public goods and services,
which governments across the EU have sought to make more equal between regions over the
period and, indeed, have used financing from the Structural Funds for this purpose (as described
in Chapter 4 below). No data exist, however, on the availability of various types of public good or
on social benefits in kind (such as child or elderly care services) which could be used in order
either to judge the achievements in this respect or to gauge the extent of regional disparities
which exists in different countries 18 .
17 Although Eurostat compiles and publishes data on disposable household income per head for NUTS 2 regions, the
fluctuations from year to year in the figures suggests that they are subject to a relatively high degree of uncertainty.
This applies especially to changes over time.
18 There are data on government expenditure on goods and services of various kinds as well as on expenditure n
social benefits in kind, but these exist only at the national level and, moreover, in the case of public goods, do not
reflect the past investment which has been made in providing amenities of various kinds.
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