180
170
160
150
140
130
120
110
100
90
80
C Catalunya —■—Baden-Württemberg
—⅛—Lombardia EU
Figure 3: GDP per-capita index in the three regions
(EU average=100) (1995-2002)
(Source EUROSTAT - Calculus: Authors)
3.2.2 Regional Openness
All the regions have very open economies with a high level of exports as a percentage of GDP
(Figure 4). According to this statistics, Baden-Württemberg was the largest exporter before Catalunya
and Lombardia. There is a striking parallelism between Baden-Württemberg and Catalunya. Both have
experienced an upward trend over the period. The performance of Lombardia declined and then
bounced back.
Looking at the exports per capita, the picture is somewhat different (Figure 5). All regions
display a smooth and increasing curve. According to this statistics, Baden-Württemberg remains the
largest exporter before Lombardia and Catalunya is the least but slightly catching up Lombardia.
The export performance of the regions is good and is keeping up. This conclusion is less clear
in Figure 4 because exports and GDP do not always fluctuate jointly.
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