Sborník 2009 díl 2. - Fakulta informatiky a managementu - Univerzita ...

CONVERGENCE OF GDP PER CAPITA IN CZECH, POLISH AND SLOVAK
REGIONS AT THE BACKGROUND OF THE EUROPEAN SPACE 1
Małgorzata Markowska, Danuta Strahl
Wroclaw University of Economics
malgorzata.markowska@ae.wroc.pl; danuta.strahl@ae.wroc.pl
Key words:
Convergence – diversification – European NUTS 2 level regions
Abstract:
The article presents discussion results over the problem of sigma type convergence in
Polish, Czech and Slovak regions at the background of the European NUTS 2 level
regions. The research covers the period of 1995-2005 and the value of natural logarithm
standard deviation from GDP per capita value at the level of regions was accepted as
the measure of sigma type convergence. The analysis was conducted by means of
distinguishing six groups of European regions, i.e. NUTS 2 level regions originating
from all EU countries, the European regional space area of 2004 accession, the regions
from “old EU 15” countries, accession countries from 2004 and 2007, accession
countries from 2004, Czech, Polish, and Slovak regions.
Introduction
Integration processes within the EU area are carried out on many levels of economic
and social life of member countries at the national, regional and local level. The
evaluation of integration effects may include many phenomena. The assessment of
convergence represents one of the ways for identifying integration processes.
Professional literature is quite abundant in studies referring to convergence at national
level [1, 2, 3, 6], however, there are fewer analyses regarding regional one [4, 5, 7, 8, 9,
10, 11, 12]. It is still an open question whether integration processes will result in
similar effects at national level, or will they “move” on to a regional cross-section?
Diversification of speed and the nature of convergence processes is observed at both
national and regional economy level. Therefore, the objective of this article becomes an
attempt to evaluate sigma type convergence in Polish, Czech and Slovak regions at the
background of the European NUTS 2 level regions.
Sigma type convergence as the tool for evaluating the process of economies
convergence
Convergence in professional literature is defined as the process of approaching the state of
balance in economies, but also as the process of levelling development by making it even.
One may distinguish sigma type convergence – identifying the dispersion of defined
variables illustrating the development level of a country or a region and beta type
1 The paper was prepared within the framework of N 111011433 grant “Knowledge Based Economy
(KBE) vs. regional development in the European space of NUTS-2 level. Econometric measurement
methods”.
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