Rural development policies at regional level in the enlarged EU. The impact of farm structures

This paper provides an investigation of the effectiveness of the main measures applied in Rural Development Programs, in particular those for farm structure intervention, at regional/national level on the basis of cluster analysis with spatial econometric tools. The main results are: (i) the identification in the enlarged Union of the main rural systems, (ii) the suggestion of some indications for the rural policies after 2013, in particular for the farm structures intervention.