By means of different econometric techniques, this paper estimates the relationship between knowledge capabilities (namely the intensities of R&D activities and higher education) and GDP per capita growth of European developed regions. Along with the structural features and the initial income levels of the regions, our estimations account for the presence of spatial dependence. We find that regional growth is positively affected by R&D intensity and the share of adults with tertiary education. These findings are robust to alternative estimation procedures, as arising from both standard OLS regressions on country demeaned data and ML estimations of different spatial models.