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

Małgorzata Markowska, Danuta Strahl CONVERGENCE OF GDP PER CAPITA IN CZECH,
POLISH AND SLOVAK REGIONS AT THE BACKGROUND OF THE EUROPEAN SPACE
regions (which makes up 97,8% of all European NUTS 2 level regions) in the following
groups (see table 1). It seems that such division will facilitate the identification of
similarity in the form of convergence processes referring to Czech, Polish and Slovak
regions, resulting from integration processes implementation and subsequent stages of
the European space extension. The results of standard deviation calculations for GDP
per capita natural logarithms in the distinguished groups are presented in table 2 and in
graphical form on picture 1.
TAB. 1. The distinguished groups of regions
Group Group’s content (marking) Number of
regions
I NUTS 2 level regions of all EU 27 countries (UE 27) i = 1,…,256
II regions of 25 UE countries, area of the European regional space after i = 1,…,251
2004 accession, (UE 25)
III regions from “old EU 15” countries (UE 15) i = 1,…,209
IV regions from 12 countries, accession countries from 2004 and 2007 i = 1,…,56
(UE 12)
V regions from 10 countries, accession countries from 2004 (UE 10) i = 1,…,42
VI Polish regions (PL) i = 1,…,16
VII Czech regions (CZ) i = 1,…,8
VIII Slovak regions (SK) i = 1,…,4
Source: authors’ compilation
Generally, in most distinguished groups there may be observed a decrease in the value
of natural logarithm standard deviation for GDP per capita. Such regularity, however, is
not observed in the jointly studied regions of 10 EU countries from group V (countries
of 2004 accession) and in analyzed countries, i.e. Poland, the Czech Republic and
Slovakia. A significant slump, i.e. the most explicit convergence processes, are noticed
in the European space covering the regions of 27 and 25 countries, while at the level of
NUTS 2 regions, in the “old EU 15” the convergence processes occur in a significantly
moderate way. At the regional NUTS 2 level in 10 EU countries, i.e. in the countries
included in group V, representing a much less advanced economic level, the
convergence processes were noticed in the period of 1995 – 2000, in 2003, while in the
following years (2004 and 2005) one may notice a visible tendency towards slowing
down the process of convergence.
In the regions of analyzed countries representing 2004 accession (The Czech Republic,
Poland and Slovakia) the definitely lowest values of GDP per capita natural logarithm
standard deviation were registered in Polish regions and the highest in Slovak ones.
Additionally, it is also characteristic that such, already major diversification, keeps
growing (in The Czech Republic the increase of GDP per capita natural logarithm in
2005, as compared to 1995, amounted to over 40%, in Poland 35,6% and in Slovakia
18,8%). Therefore, one may assume that in the European regional space, representing a
significantly diversified economic development regarding particular NUTS 2 level
regions and illustrated by GDP per capita, the convergence processes occur in a
dynamic way, while in the space characterized by a less diversified level of
development such processes are moderate or even divergence is observed.
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