The evolution of the regional disparities in the Visegrad group in the years 1995 – 2014

Rok, strany: 2016, 283 - 299

In our research, we examined the territorial disparities in the four countries of the Visegrad group, which joined the EU in 2004, for the period between 1995 and 2015. We used as our theoretical starting point the Williamson-hypothesis which focuses on the correlations of economic catching up, with the developed regions growing faster than the less developed ones, because their developed resources are utilized in a better and faster way. According to our initial hypothesis, there is a connection between the regions’ economic development and the size of inner regional disparities, so the Williamson- hypothesis can be verified in our research area. We use the weighted logarithmic standard deviations (WLSD) for the measurement of the territorial differences. In the first part of our research, we examined the economic growth and the spatial disparities in the Visegrad countries and also in the European Union. The second part of the research focuses on the exploration of the connection between the GDP per capita and the disparity index of the regions involved in the research. According to our hypothesis, there is a correlation between the regions’ differentiation and development, appropriate to the Williamson-curve. So in the regions with higher GDP per capita the inner disparities are smaller, than in the regions with lower GDP per capita. Finally, for the verification of the above mentioned hypothesis, we expanded our research to all regions of the European Union.

ISO 690:

Neszmélyi, G., Akócsi, I., Bruder, E. 2016. The evolution of the regional disparities in the Visegrad group in the years 1995 – 2014. In Geografický časopis, vol. 68, no.4, pp. 283-299. 0016-7193.

APA:

Neszmélyi, G., Akócsi, I., Bruder, E. (2016). The evolution of the regional disparities in the Visegrad group in the years 1995 – 2014. Geografický časopis, 68(4), 283-299. 0016-7193.