Maria Tsiapa

Poverty is a complex and persistent phenomenon, the eradication of which is crucial for all economies, regardless of their development level. Its multidimensional nature necessitates a comprehensive understanding of demographic, socioeconomic, and institutional determinants to devise effective poverty alleviation strategies and promote sustainable development. Within this context, this paper aims, first, to measure the deprivation levels of the NUTS2 regions of the EU during 2002–2020 through the lens of people’s perceptions. This approach captures individual perspectives across multiple fields of deprivation—income, living conditions, health, education, and safety—offering a more nuanced view of poverty persistence. Second, it explores the determinants of deprivation, which are shaped not only by individual characteristics but also by the socio-economic, institutional and geographic environment that define regional development capacity. By shedding light on these complex and interconnected factors, this analysis aims to deepen understanding of poverty’s persistence and prevalence, offering valuable insights for policymaking.

The global landscape is marked by ongoing transformations and abrupt shifts driven by new forms of globalisation through the expansion of Global Value Chains, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and recurring crises. This paper examines the role of these key economic, global, and technological challenges in shaping productivity growth across EU regions, assessing both the nature and variability of their impacts at the sub‐national level. The novelty of the paper lies in its ability to uncover the complex dynamics and pronounced spatial variations often masked by national aggregates, many of which remain underexplored. The results show that productivity imbalances stem from economic challenges, where resilience depends on the adaptation and adaptability of regions anchored in the secondary sector; from global challenges, as integration imposes limits and leads to losses through overexposure and dependence on Global Value Chains via backward linkages; and from technological challenges, as the new industrial revolution drives higher productivity gains in the most digitally intensive sectors of manufacturing. By demonstrating that regions differ not only in their exposure to these challenges but also in their capacity to adapt and thrive, the paper provides valuable insights for policymakers aiming to address regional disparities and foster more balanced, sustainable productivity growth across the EU.

The paper compiles a Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood econometric model aiming at detecting and assessing the drivers and the barriers of incoming remittance flows in Europe. The analysis focuses on 297 NUTS 2 level regions and covers the period 2010–2018. For the needs of the analysis, the paper compiles a dataset with interregional remittance flows “regionalising” the corresponding country-level data. The findings of the paper offer substantial insight into the roles of economic, demographic, geographical and institutional factors, not only enriching the discourse in economic integration theory but also presenting practical implications for policymakers engaged in regional economic planning and integration strategies.

This paper examines the productivity slowdown by analyzing the degree, leverage, and spatial patterns of productivity improvements and spillovers in regions of France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The analysis covers the Global Financial Crisis (2007–2012) as well as the pre-crisis (2002–2007) and post-crisis (2012–2017) periods. Using the Metafrontier Malmquist Productivity approach with robust estimators, the study conceptualizes technological shifts and diffusion networks within both endogenous and exogenous regional environments. Findings show that changes in technical efficiency have a short-term positive effect on regional growth, while technical change affects growth through initial conditions and path dependency. Regional productivity shifted from improving within-country resource allocation via endogenous factors enhancing the exogenous operating environment. However, unlocking a region’s full productivity potential depends on factors beyond its development level. Diffusion networks for efficiency and technological advancements exhibit limited dynamism and region-specific characteristics. In some cases, productivity growth in one region negatively affects neighboring regions. Spillovers from efficiency improvements occur partially among regions with closer technological proximity, especially during crises. These insights offer important policy implications for fostering regional productivity and addressing uneven development.

This paper aims to delve into the multidimensionality and complexity of the concept of resilience by exploring two issues. Firstly, it investigates the role of social capital through the social participation and cooperatives in the economic resilience of Greek regions providing novel findings for the social resilience of the country. Secondly, it gains an in-depth understanding about the dualistic nature of resilience as it is related to a dynamic export profile of regions in tandem with one that is more traditional or less exposed to the market. This raises questions about the risk of specific regions being trapped in a protective environment providing policy implications. The measurement of the resilience capability of regions is based on both the time of exposure and the intensity of distress associating thus the business cycles of regions with their resilience capability. Additionally, the analysis studies the full period of recession and recovery, which lasted until the next crisis began (COVID-19 pandemic), allowing the investigation of the configurations formed and of the existence of different stages inside the recovery period.

Purpose: The unprecedented economic crisis in Greece deeply affected entrepreneurship, which was traditionally characterised by low levels of innovation and competitiveness, the dominant presence of micro-sized enterprises and the weak signs of prosperity in large firms. This paper, in acknowledgement of the necessary transformations that production incurred due to the crisis, attempts to detect the characteristics of large manufacturing firms that contributed to their greater resilience during the unstable period of 2011–2016 by analysing the determinants of the higher profitability of firms. The analysis shows that firms that improved their productivity and sales levels and in parallel are flexible, in the sense that they have limited amounts of both assets and liabilities and thus a small risk, are those that presented higher profits during the period under study. Initial conditions, sectoral characteristics and the broader national environment do not seem to have a strong contributive role in firms' profitability.Design/methodology/approach: The analysis follows a dynamic system generalised method of moments (GMM) estimation based on a panel data set of 125 Greek large firms over the time span 2011–2016.Findings: The analysis shows that firms that improve their productivity and sales levels and in parallel are flexible, in the sense that they have a limited amount of both assets and liabilities and thus a small risk, are those that present higher profits during the period under study. Initial conditions, sectoral characteristics and the broader national environment do not seem to have a strong contributive role in firms' profitability.Research limitations/implications: The present paper attempts to explain the performance of the most dynamic large manufacturing firms in Greece by investigating the role of some of the most important determinants of firm profitability (according to data availability), acknowledging, however, some analysis' limitations as the absence of some other parameters like the export activity or the incorporation of any innovative features in the firmsOriginality/value: The novelty of this paper lies in two points. First, the subject of the analysis is the large firms in Greece, which have not received much attention as Greek entrepreneurship was traditionally based on the light, labour- or resource-intensive production and the main bulk of the literature was not on that topic. Second, during the deep and protracted crisis that Greece has experienced, several production transformations have taken place that remain partly undiscovered. The present paper attempts to analyse the characteristics of large firms that drove their profitability and improved their resilience during the crucial time period 2011–16.