Assessing policy options for the EU Cohesion Policy 2014-2020

In this paper we analyse the possible impact of Cohesion Policy 2014-2020, putting together the investments supported by EU funding in all NUTS2 regions and running a set of simulations. We make use of RHOMOLO, a spatial CGE model tailored for economic analysis at the subnational level, which is described in the paper. We do so by first considering infrastructure investment, human capital development and innovation climate support, including environmental amelioration, separately and then run a combined simulation of the three categories to give an impression of the pattern and time profile of the overall effect. The results of the simulation show substantial heterogeneity in the effects across the regions, which are not a mere image of the differences in input. The concentration of EU funding on the less developed regions, and on energy saving, innovation and social inclusion in the more developed regions receiving support, could be a fruitful mix for lifting the standards of living in the whole of Europe.