Ekonomikos teritorinių (regionų) skirtumų vertinimas Europos Sąjungos šalyse ; Evaluation of economic territorial (regional) disparities in countries of the European Union

Abstract

Many countries face the challenge of ensuring equal opportunities for all citizens, irrespective of where they reside. These problems cannot be solved without an evaluation of social, territorial, and economic disparities. It is important to understand the causes and nature of this process, because even small differences in economic growth among regions, accumulated over a long period, may lead to considerable disparities in living standards in different parts of the same country. These differences have negative impact on further economic growth and contribute to economic, social and political tensions between regions, which in turn lead to an inefficient spatial allocation and use of resources. This has led that European economic integration which began in the fifties of the last century was always accompanied by the idea of social cohesion. While developing cohesion programs the evaluation of economic disparities between regions has become particularly relevant and regional economic convergence became the main principle of regional policy. EU regional policy can be considered successful if the disparities between the regions decrease, but studies dealing with the convergence / divergence matter do not provide definitive conclusions. Evaluation of regional economic convergence process primarily highlights the problem of definition of the region, whereas the term, depending on the context in which it is used, acquires a different meaning. The criteria to define the concept of the region range between two extremes – the normative and functional. The studies on the regions of the EU member states most commonly use administrative regions which are defined according to the nomenclature of territorial statistical units. According to the review of researches on regional convergence in the EU it can be stated that despite a few exceptions analyses focus on NUTS2 (less commonly NUTS1) level regions. [.]