Economic Activity in Peripheral Regions – a Case of Poland

Abstract

The Author discussed, explored, evaluated and diagnosed the disparities of economic activity on regional level. The study embraced five peripheral regions of Poland, namely five Eastern provinces (voivodships), i.e. Lublin Province, Podlasie Province, Subcarpathia Province, Świętokrzyskie Province and Warmia-Masuria Province. The aforementioned five voivodships were compared to Poland and Poland's central region, i.e. Masovia Province. The following elements were taken into consideration: employment rate and employment by sectors, unemployment rate, GDP per capita, number of economic entities and number of natural persons conducting economic activity, investment outlays and gross expenditure on R&D activity, as well as net internal and external migration for permanent residence. In order to observe the possible changes over the time the situation in 2005 and 2017 was studied. Additionally, the total value of projects co-financed by the European Union through Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund within 2007-2013 period and 2014-2020 perspective was presented and analyzed. The research tools used in the article included literature studies, critical thinking, descriptive analysis and comparative analysis, in that the selected statistical method of multivariate comparative analysis, i.e. Hellwig's taxonomic measure of development. Statistical material provided by Central Statistical Office (Warsaw, Poland) and taken from Statistical Yearbooks of the Regions 2006Regions , 2007Regions , 2017 and 2018 was used for the analysis. The obtained results indicate the persistence of huge regional disparities of economic activity, economic potential and socioeconomic development despite the implementation of EU Policy of Social, Economic and Territorial Cohesion. Hence, it was possible to positively verify the research hypotheses: both the first hypothesis assuming that the gap between the studied peripheral regions and the rest of Poland was not reduced and the second hypothesis assuming that the participation in the processes of regional economic integration, and in particular in EU Policy of Economic, Social and Territorial Cohesion, had only limited impact on the reduction of disparities between Poland's regions.

Factors of Divergence between Peripheral and Central Subregions: The Case of Mazovia Province, Poland

“…Var 3), -the administrative status of the subregion's largest city (IndVar 4), -the level of centrality within the country, measured as a distance between the subregion's and country's capitals (IndVar 5) (see Greenberg et al 2018;Pawlas 2019). Radom subregion have been considered, i.e.…”

“…The distinction between central and peripheral regions (Heffner, Gibas 2017) relates to their economic potential and socio-economic activity (Leszczewska 2010;Pawlas 2019). Central regions profit from a diversified set of favourable features such as good geopolitical location, well-developed hard and soft infrastructure, good access to well-educated labour as well as close proximity to capitals and metropolises (Leszczewska 2010).…”

“…On the contrary, peripheral regions are those that suffer lack, deficiency or malfunctioning of these assets. There are clear disparities between well-developing central regions and their poor peripheral counterparts (Pawlas 2019). This fact, however, raises the questions if the rapid development of scarce centres is somehow related to poor performance of their peripheries and what circumstances may be acknowledged as factors of growth and collapse.…”