Spatial patterns of regional economic development in Central and Eastern European countries

The aim of the work described here has been to analyse the spatial patterns of regional economic development in the EU 10 New Member States located in Central and Eastern Europe. Its first hypothesis suggests that regional convergence observed at macroregional level should lead to a decrease in spatial dependency at the NUTS3 level, i.e. to overall diffusion of development across particular countries. However, a second hypothesis claims that diffusion processes from national growth centres to their regional surroundings would be still quite limited and negligible. The latter hypothesis relates to a different pattern of diffusion in selected economic secto rs that should largely explain the overall regional convergence process. To verify these hypotheses, the spatial autocorrelation method based on the Global Moran’s I Statistic and Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA) has been applied for the period 1995-2009/2010, with special emphasis put on particular sub-periods reflecting different stages of the transformation process, EU membership and the recent economic crisis. Furthermore, the analysis covers values of GDP per capita both absolute and relativised (to the national averages), as well as structural differences that allow for the presentation of the diverse dimensions to regional economic growth.