Patterns of Regional Inequality in Transition Economies

By G. Petrakos. 2001

149 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper provides a comparative account of important aspects of regional development in transition economies, on the basis of regional statistics available for Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. More specifically it examines the geographical pattern of disparities, the convergence/divergence trends that have taken place at the regional level and the relation of regional disparities to the process of transition. It is found that spatial adjustments under transition favour metropolitan and western regions, especially in countries sharing common borders with the European Union (EU) and being a short distance from the European core. In addition, disparities have increased at various rates and degrees in transition countries to levels that are higher than most of the EU countries. Given that the catch-up process, which favours more often efficiency than equity policies, has a long way to go, the regional problems in these countries may take alarming, by EU standards, dimensions.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Political Science and International Relations

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ba614ca8bb49c98758d8caf5ebbbe3f4c97b7694

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Citations in the corpus

Geospatial Analysis of Regional Development in China: The Case of Zhejiang Province and the Wenzhou Model (2005, background): “…to these countries, others argue that the transition is characterized by partial reform, path dependency, and geographical unevenness, and have pointed to persistent or rising income gaps and spatial inequalities (e.g., Petrakos, 2001; Dienes, 2002; Bradshaw and Vartapetov, 2003; Kepka, 2004).”
Regional Development in China: Transitional Institutions, Embedded Globalization, and Hybrid Economies (2007, unknown): “First, regional inequality is a key issue in former socialist countries, where scholars are debating intensively the social and spatial effects of reforms and transition (e.g., Petrakos, 2001; Bradshaw and Vartapetov, 2003; Kepka, 2004; Bradshaw and Prendergrast, 2005).”
Does decentralization matter for regional disparities? A cross-country analysis (2010, background): “Various studies have identified an important increase in the level of spatial inequality within the CEE countries during the transition period (Petrakos, 2001; Ezcurra and Pascual, 2007) and the changes seem to have mainly benefited capital cities and major urban agglomerations (Bachtler, Downes and”
Is There a Global Link between Regional Disparities and Devolution? (2004, background): “The process culminated at the beginning of 2002 with the transfer of control over education and health to all those Spanish regions that did not previously control those sectors, making Spain the most decentralised state in terms of regional government expenditure in Western Europe.”
BEYOND CONVERGENCE: SPACE, SCALE, AND REGIONAL INEQUALITY IN CHINA (2009, background): “Scholars working on the former socialist countries have debated intensely over the consequences of reforms, especially whether reform has intensified regional inequalities and policies for future action (e.g. Petrakos 2001; Bradshaw & Vartapetov 2003; Anderson 2005).”