Regional social accounting matrices for structural policy analysis in lagging EU

The significant diversity of EU rural areas in terms of population, natural resource endowments and socio-economic structures is likely to result in different impacts of policy changes and economic developments. This paper attempts to reveal how EU structural policy during 1989–1993 affected remote rural areas (with mixed and agriculturally dependent economic structures, respectively) in Northern and Southern Europe, and to quantify the impacts on local growth generation through the use of a general equilibrium model. Finally, the impacts of three structural policy scenarios (including Agenda 2000) on the rural economies studied are estimated.