1. Give some other ‘pro-market’ solutions to the regional problem.

2. Do people in the more prosperous areas benefit from pro-market solutions?

3. If a Japanese car manufacturer were attracted into an unemployment blackspot and opened up a highly capital-intensive ‘robot-line’ car assembly plant, in what other local industries might employment be stimulated?

4. If you were the government, how would you set about deciding the rate of subsidy to pay a firm thinking of moving to a less prosperous area?

5. With 19 countries using the euro, how is the common currency likely to affect the distribution of income among the EU countries?

6. What obstacles lie in the way of a growing convergence in output per head in the EU countries?