AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
Figure 2: Cross-regional analysis of
β-convergence of the Czech
regions in 2000-2017. Source: own processing
Table 1: GDP per capita Y in 2000 (in thousands CZK) and
average productivity growth rate
γ for the period T = 17 in the
regions of the Czech Republic
Region
SC
JC
PL
KV
US
LI
HK
Y(2000)
232,182
217,824
217,352
197,046
191,193
210,562
215,488
γ (17)
0,0384
0,0338
0,0416
0,0227
0,0348
0,0323
0,0423
Region
PA
VY
JM
OL
ZL
MS
Y(2000)
197,531
189,362
209,902
183,677
189,743
178,346
γ (17)
0,0397
0,0428
0,0449
0,0418
0,0450
0,0464
Source: own processing
The development of the Y = GDP per capita variability in years
2000-2017 among regions used for the analysis of
σ-
convergence according to (3) is summarized in Tab. 2 with
estimated standard deviations
σ shown in the 2
nd
row.
Table 2: Variability of product per capita Y expressed by means
of population standard deviation
σ (in thousands CZK, period
2000-2017)
Year
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
Sdev
Y
69,6
79,7
85,8
93,7
102,7
111,4
120,5
135,4
141,7
Mean
Y
220,4
238,4
249,0
259,8
281,5
298,6
319,5
345,4
355,4
Year
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Sdev
Y
134,5
135,9
133,1
132,0
133,0
134,8
152,0
156,3
165,6
Mean
Y
346,7
348,2
356,0
357,2
361,1
380,0
401,8
415,7
438,8
Source: own processing
Discussion of results
The results of the analysis indicate that GDP development in the
Czech regions does not fulfill any of considered criteria of
convergence, i.e., neither in terms of (2) nor (3) convergence
trend was showed; on the contrary, as we can see from Tab. 2 the
dispersion among the regions increased, particularly in the
periods of economic growth.
Tab. 1 enables us to identify two groups of regions according to
their initial Y in the year 2000, namely, with Y < 200 thousands
of CZK (KV, PA, US, ZL, VY, MS, OL), and the rest with Y >
200 thousands of CZK.
Analogically, the regions can be separated into two groups
according to γ as follows: the group of regions with γ < 0,035
(KV, US, LI, JC) and the group
with γ > 0,035.
As we can see from Fig. 2, five out of seven regions with lower
initial Y reached the group of the larger
γ; in contrast, some
regions included in the richer group according to Y achieved
worse results of γ. This indicates that there is at least certain
tendency for initially poorer regions to grow on average faster
than the richer ones. However, the variability among regions is
so large that it does not enable us to formulate a definite
conclusion.
As regards to the analysis of the variance across regions, it can
be seen from Tab. 2 that the variability of Y across regions has
not increased systematically; at the crisis outbreak in 2008-2009
it decreased and then stabilized until 2014. Nevertheless, the
present period of economic growth leads to further growth of
regional disparity.
5 Results of analysis of trend in UR development and its
correlation with FDI
The trend in development of UR in the Czech regions is
examined by means of the regression model based on equation
(1) that captures the relation between UR in the initial year 2000
with the change in UR from 2000 to 2017 (see Fig. 3) and
enables to compare regional UR development in the considered
period.
The correlation between the analyzed variables is negative and
significant (ρ = -0,977, slope parameter of regression line β= -
0,8502 with p-value ~10-8 computed from corresponding t-
distribution). As we can see from Fig.3, the strongest
contribution to the resulting relationship was due to the regions
US, MS and OL characterized by the highest UR in 2000 and,
simultaneously, by its highest decrease between 2000-2017.
Figure 3: Relation between the UR in 2000 and the UR change
between the period 2000-2017. Source: own processing
The question arises whether any positive influence of regional
FDI flows to the regional UR development can be proven.
Graphically the dependence between these variables is captured
in Fig. 4, where cumulated regional FDI flows per capita in
2000-2015 are plotted on the horizontal axis and the UR change
between 2000 and 2016 is shown on the vertical axis. In the case
of an explicit impact of FDI on UR, we expect a negative
dependence in the sense that larger regional FDI flows lead to a
more significant decrease in UR. The data, however, do not
support such a conjecture. The dependence is positive, though
not significant statistically (
ρ = 0,2678, slope β = 0,0168, p-value
in the corresponding t-test is 0,3764).
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