Issue: 2011/Vol.21/No.2, Pages 17-43
THE IMPACT OF REGIONAL DISPARITIES ON ECONOMIC GROWTH
Henryk Gurgul
, Łukasz Lach
Cite as: H. Gurgul, Ł. Lach. The impact of regional disparities on economic growth. Operations Research and Decisions 2011: 21(2), 17-43.
Abstract
The authors investigated how economic growth affects the disparity in the distribution of region- al income in Poland and vice versa. The research was based on annual data covering the period 2000–2009. In general, the research was divided into two main parts. First, the authors examined the evolution of the level of spatial inequalities in income in Poland over the last decade using the con- cepts of sigma and beta convergence. Next the nature of causal dependences was investigated be- tween this inequality and economic growth. It was found that Polish regions did not converge with re- spect to the distribution of income as total GDP grew. The second part of the research provided evidence to claim that this inequality caused growth. Moreover, the evidence was also found that growth affected regional inequality. Finally, the authors noticed that the effects of both these factors were positive. The results suggest that as a consequence of rapid economic growth, some regions in Poland seized new opportunities, while less developed regions were unable to keep up with the chal- lenging requirements of a decade of fast economic growth.
Keywords: regional inequalities, economic growth, sigma and beta convergence, Granger causality
Received: Accepted: