This paper investigates the policy context of spatial injustice in Greece. Given the polarized nature of the economy and the centralized structure of the public sector, the paper examines whether place-based policies that attempt to strengthen the local level and mobilize local assets would be better opt to deliver a fair and equitable distribution of socially valued resources and opportunities in space. In this context, the paper presents and discusses the findings of four case studies and four policy-driven actions related to the design and implementation of a post-lignite local strategy, the establishment of a credible innovation strategy in a metropolitan area, the development of social economy in a lagging region and the upscaling of local government in a medium-sized city. The case studies investigate the conditioning factors that encourage or obstruct the local level to implement effective place-based policies that can contribute to spatial justice. On this basis, the paper evaluates the capability of the current policy and institutional setting to generate spatial justice and provides policy recommendations that will empower the local level in confronting socio-economic challenges and unbalanced spatial growth.

Monetary policy is unlikely to have a uniform impact on the real economic activity across regions with different industrial structures. This study measures the heterogeneous effects of monetary policy on regional and sectoral output of the 13 regions in Greece over the period 1980 to 2009. By using an unrestricted vector autoregressive model and the impulse response analysis, our results show that an interest rate shock affects the economic activity across regions differently. Furthermore in our investigation, we use a panel vector autoregressive model so as to investigate the dynamic variation of the impact of interest rates controlling also for time and cross regions fixed effects associated with specific time invariant regions' characteristics as well as with time variant characteristics attributed to the integration process of these regions. Finally, in identifying the channel of monetary policy transmission in the Greek regions, we investigate the role of Greek regional industrial structures in explaining these variations.

The paper investigates the nexus of tourism spending (i.e. leisure and business tourism spending) with economic performance (i.e. GDP and employment) for the Eurozone countries, during the period 2000-2018, employing sophisticated panel data analysis techniques. The issue is salient, given that within the Eurozone economic space the abolition of border impediments has released dynamics and brought into surface a new mix of opportunities, threats and challenges that has been changing the balance between centripetal and centrifugal forces. The findings of the paper identify the long-run equilibrium and confirm the bi-directional relationships among the variables considered, thus contributing to the discussion on the relationship between tourism and economic performance.