Modeling Regional Growth between Competitiveness and Austerity Measures: The MASST3 Model

This article deals with the implementation of a new version of a macroeconometric regional growth model called MAcroeconomic, Sectoral, Social, Territorial Model (MASST). The new version presents interesting novelties with respect to the past, since it is able to embrace the two main supranational regulations with which the European Union binds decision-making processes in national economies, that is, public budget limitations and austerity measures on the one hand, and competitiveness/growth measures on the other hand. The novelties lie both in the technical way the economic crisis and its measures are formalized in a regional growth model and in the potentialities that the model achieves, namely: (i) measuring the costs of short-term austerity rules vis-à-vis long-term growth aims and their interactions and feedbacks; (ii) pointing out the regional heterogeneity in the effects generated by macroeconomic trends and conditions