Inequality, polarisation and regional mobility in the European Union

This paper examines the distribution dynamics of regional per capita income in the European Union between 1977 and 1999. To achieve this aim, we combine a non-parametric approach with the information provided by various measures used in the literature on personal income distribution. The results obtained suggest that regional inequality and polarisation have decreased in the European context over the period considered. Likewise, the observed level of intradistributional mobility is relatively low. Furthermore, our findings reveal the important role played by the national component and the spatial dimension in the distribution dynamics.The authors acknowledge the financial support from MCYT (Project BEC2002-03941) and the Fundación BBVA