The article presents the problem of local socio-economic development. An illustration of theoretical considerations is an empirical study on evaluation of the West Pomeranian Voivodship districts' development since Poland's accession to the European Union. In the research, a taxonomic measure of development was used to assess the level and rate of districts' development. The empirical study was carried out in four main stages: collection of initial characteristics, reduction of the initial set of diagnostic features (to ensure their highest diagnostic value), calculations of synthetic measures using the modified TOPSIS procedure and construction of rankings of districts on that basis, creation of typological groups of districts characterized by a similar level and the pace of development. The study showed the existence of large diversification of economic development of the surveyed districts. The highest level of socio-economic development in both: 2004 and 2017 was characteristic for the Kamieński district and the lowest level of development in 2004 was observed in the Wałecki district and in 2017 in the Gryficki district. The highest pace of changes in the level of socio-economic development between 2004 and 2017 was recorded for the Białogardzki district, while the lowest for the Świdwiński district.

In the paper, the author considers the situation in which several econometric models of the same variable are available. Then the main problem is to select the best model. For this purpose they are generally used measures of model fit to the empirical data. An alternative approach is testing of encompassing. In the paper, the author presents theoretical considerations about forecast encompassing. In this case we can use combined forecasts being weighted average of individual forecasts determined on the basis of competing models The illustration of theoretical considerations is the empirical example, in which the costs of heat and electricity production in a power plant B are modeling and forecasting. Słowa kluczowe: model ekonometryczny, obejmowanie modeli względem prognoz, prognozy kombinowane, testowanie obejmowania modeli.

In the paper, the author presents the hybrid method of time series modelling using artificial neural networks. The illustration of theoretical considerations is the empirical example, in which models and forecasts are determined for microeconomic variable with trend and seasonal fluctuations with high intensity. In the first stage of the research, patterns in time series are identified using the self-organizing Kohonen maps. Next, a modification of the pattern identification method is applied. Based on it, fragments of time series are extracted, then models of multilayer perceptrons are built. In the last stage of the research, forecasts are determined, their quality is assessed on the basis of average ex-post errors. The research confirms the usefulness of hybrid neural models in time series forecasting.Słowa kluczowe: perceptrony wielowarstwowe, samoorganizujące się sieci Kohonena, szeregi czasowe, sztuczne sieci neuronowe, wzorce.

The author presents the possibilities of using artificial neural networks in a multidimensional analysis – cluster analysis. The empirical example using districts of the Zachodniopomorskie (West Pomeranian) Voivodeship is the illustration of theoretical considerations. The study used statistical data from many areas related to socio-economic development: demography, labour market, natural environment, recreation, culture, social and technical infrastructure, and the economy. The aim of the study was to divide the voivodeship into disjointed typological groups of districts using Kohonen networks (Self-Organizing Maps). Several networks differing in structure of the output layer were constructed and trained. Selected diagnostic features of socio-economic development of districts were their input values. Using verified Kohonen networks, various sets of groups of the researched objects were created, and confirmed them are a useful tool for identifying clusters of districts similar to each other in terms of the level of socio-economic development.