The aim of the article is to answer the question about the effects of Poland’s accession to the European Union from the point of view of regional inequalities in Poland. We present a neoclassical model of exogenous growth with the balance of European Union’s resources allocated to the cohesion and convergence policy implementation. The model is a generalization of the standard growth model of Solow and Swan. in the paper, we describe the methods of establishing the values of the model variables in a steady state. We perform a retrospective analysis of regional inequalities in Poland for the period 2004–2006 and a prospective analysis based on the models of growth of the Polish economy and the regional economies of voivodships. We draw conclusions about the first effects of the cohesion and convergence programme in Poland and the postulates for the principles of construction of new regional growth models as instruments of description and analysis of convergence and regional inequalities.
In the paper we present two neoclassical growth models of Solow-Swan type: with regional budget deficit and without it. The main aim of the paper is to analyze the convergence of regions in Poland towards their stable steady-states and to check the speed of this convergence. We use the method of calibration of parameters in models and numerical methods for calculating capital and output per worker in stable steady-states. The computations were made for the new administration division of Poland. On the base of empirical results we make conclusions about future distribution of wealth among regions and about potential possibilities of growth in regions. We also try to answer the question if in the future there will be convergence or divergence of welfare among regions of Poland.
The article describes the important problem of increasing regional competitiveness through the international (interregional and cross-border) cooperation. Activities supporting the competitiveness of companies and whole regions are described in the article using the examples of transregional projects carried out by different partners dealing with logistics. The first project ECO4LOG carried out in the framework of interregional cooperation programme INTERREG III C promotes the usage of the intermodal infrastructure located in the transport corridor along Polish and German border and further through Austria, Hungary and Slovenia to the Adriatic sea. One of the main tasks of this project is the improvement of cross-border cooperation in goods transport among bodies which are interested in such cooperation (also public authorities). Another important target of ECO4LOG is the increase of effectiveness of the existing transport network through the improvement of information flows. The second project has the acronym CORELOG and is carried out in the framework of INTERREG III B CADSES. Its target is the development of logistics solutions favourable for enterprises, logistics operators and the whole region – propagating co-ordination of activities of different organisations, feasibility studies of developed co-operation models. Analysis and evaluation of the most important factors influencing the strategies of supply chain management and evaluation of activities carried out by administrations (of the national, regional and local level) affecting transport development and economic growth in the region will provide background for the implementation phase. Several pilot actions will test the ideas for coordinated regional logistics development.
The main purpose of this paper is to present selected methods of spatial-economic research with a special focus on Michalski`s method. The enlargement of the European Union by new countries is an important opportunity to carry out comparative studies, making it possible to analyse and assess the competitiveness of regions as well as spatial and regional diversity of growth centres. The presented visualisation methods are the authors` modest contribution to literature on this subject. This contribution includes collecting domestic methods, their implementation in research and some modifications. The purpose of these methods was to examine spatial processes (in such areas as: economy, demography, agriculture, quality of life or building) in different spatial sections, in the years 1990–1992. There are many methods of examining similarity (dissimilarity) of regional structures. All of them fundamentally depend on the concept of structure. In this paper, two different approaches of this concept and the relevant measures shall be presented. Furthermore, various methods of visualisation of the obtained measures shall be presented.
New Public Management – inspired reforms have influenced implementation of management principles in local government, the marketisation and outsourcing. These reforms were mostly visible in the United Kingdom but appear also in other European countries, for example: Ireland, Sweden, Germany, the least in France (among described in this article). There is a risk that NPM-led reforms may come to lose sight of the underlying social purpose of public services. NPM has not became a new, universal model of public sector management. The debate about public service reform has moved (particularly in UK) beyond the concerns of NPM to an emerging concept of networked community governance.
The paper analyzes the sources of economic growth in the regions of Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC) using a multi-dimensional approach that takes into account: a) disaggregation of the economic structure; b) the international and national contexts of regional development processes; and c) the main types of regions. The results corroborate the validity of such an approach, showing the interrelationships between the development dynamics of individual regions and the structural changes that are difficult or impossible to identify using an analysis of aggregated values. In particular, the analyses conducted as part of the study help identify the key constituents of metropolization processes taking place in the regions of major city centres, the progress of reindustrialisation processes occurring in transitional regions, and the mechanisms underpinning development of peripheral regions. Based on these differences, the author formulates some general recommendations for policies implemented in these types of regions.
The article deals with the analysis of the anticipated middle-term demand for dwellings in Poland. On the basis of the empirical research this demand has been considered as being determined by the two groups of factors: demographic and economic, together with the level of the state of fulfillment of the basic housing needs. The finale set consisted of eight factors of the diverse wage. These were: the percentage of deficient flats counted as the difference between the number of households and the number of flats, the average space floor per capita, the population growth in 1998-2002, the percentage of people in the age from 20 to 39, prognosis of the number of inhabitants in 2002-2010, the unemployment rate, average wages, and the number of the business entities per 1000 inhabitants. The analyze has been carried out in the commune-scale pattern and can be useful for spatial planners and persons professionally involved in the housing market.
The aim of the French territorial reform from December 2010 was to change the structure of the French local political and administrative system thanks to institutional solutions that would strengthen the biggest agglomerations and lead to their progressive metropolization. The announced changes were meant to adjust the model of territorial organization to the requirements of contemporary economy and to enhance national economic growth of the country in stagnation. The introduction in the law of metropolises as new local-government territorial units that took over the most important competences of municipalities and departments was meant as a “territorial revolution”. Unfortunately, it failed. Meanwhile, the regulations that would make it possible to create a rather loose form of interterritorial cooperation, a so-called Metropolitan Pole, that were inserted into the project at the last moment, gave results unexpected by the legislator. This situation shows the growing importance of flexible solutions regarding competences and territory, solutions that use multilevel governance as an effective tool for inter-territorial management in the situation of inertia of the classical territorial structure and obstacles to its reform.
Debates on urbanization usually present benefits of big cities. We agree that only metropolis offers prospects for economic growth and prosperity. We tend to forget that big cities of the South remain the areas of poverty, joblessness, social alienations and ecological disasters. But already in 2015 population of sixteen cities will be larger than 10 million people and fourteen of them will belong to the poor urban regions. Therefore, the greatest challenge of our century is urbanization of the South, creating a real threat to global social, political and ecological stability. The idea of metropolitan cities is not the answer.
For some time local governments and urban politics have been undergoing significant changes related to the change of the traditional welfare state model. These changes have concerned economic, political and management dimensions. While describing these processes numerous authors refer to the notion of New Public Management. This article discusses three theories which have been created to help in interpretation of on-going processes. New Political Culture theory by T.N. Clark stresses value and economic changes and underlines their implications for changes in styles of local politics. Local governance theory developed mostly by Peter John concentrates on shape of local government institutions. Another T.N. Clark’s theory of the “city as an entertainment machine” focuses on evolving mechanisms of local economic development and their impact on policies adopted by urban governments. The paper formulates questions and initial hypothesis about applicability of these concepts to Polish environment.
Human capital stock affects the economic growth by raising the productivity of labour or by improving the ability of the economy to create and absorb innovations. In the scale of the local economy of an academic city, this process can be reinforced by attracting students and researchers to study and work at the local universities. To do this successfully, the city needs not only a high quality academic institutions but also the wider labour market for the educated individuals and – more generally – the ability to attract the creative class to settle down. The article provides the comparative analysis of the ability of the largest Polish cities to attract and absorb human capital. The research is based on the unique dataset coming from nasza-klasa.pl website (allowing users to contact their former class mates). The research concludes with the typology of the Polish cities with respect to the scale of benefits from performing the academic function.
In the paper, we calculate Okun’s coefficients in the regions of Poland. We compare the coefficients estimated for each region separately with the calculations obtained from seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) models. The results reveal that the latter method gives better estimates, because shocks in output are highly correlated across regions. Then, we consider the question concerning the existence of macroeconomic “clubs” among Polish regions. Two such clubs are found: the northwest of Poland and the eastern border region. Finally, some conclusions concerning economic policy preventing unemployment are drawn.
The paper proposes a model in which centre-periphery relations defined at a high level of generality (from the global level down to regional structures) can be analysed from a perspective of a number of disciplines, including political science (e.g. Rokkan’s theory of peripheries and centre-periphery cleavages), sociology (e.g. Bourdieu’s theory of the forms of capital) and linguistics (discourse analysis including code switching and politeness theories). It focuses on the nature of the discourse of peripheral elites which, as it is argued, live in a two or more dimensional social space and communicate in at least two separate codes (particularly languages): peripheral and central. Using the above mentioned theoretical concepts, the paper offers an attempt at theorisation of the mechanism of mutual perception of the centre and the periphery.
The article explores the issue of social development of the local communes. This development process is defined as growth and differentiation in the fulfilment of needs of the social groups located on the particular area. There is spectrum of measures that allows us to define level of development and specificity of the particular territorial communes. Author presents the concept of Indicator of Development of Territorial Communes (IDTC) calculated for communes. This indicator is calculated according to the portfolio method and it takes into account both growth factors and barriers of development. The practical use of the IDTC is illustrated on the example of the communes in Zachodniopomorskie Region, for years 1999–2001. The results show uneven and incoherent development of the communes in the region discussed. The further conclusion is that this situation would not change in the short-term perspective.
In Western Europe, the model of local government has been changing in the previous decades: from a council-committee model to more executive-oriented ones, like the parliamentary and the presidential models. Political leadership lies at the heart of many of the recent institutional reforms of local government. An explicit aim of these reforms has been to strengthen the executive power, and to provide strong, visible and effective leadership. For example, the position of the mayor in Britain and Germany and of the board in the Netherlands has changed. The direct election of mayors is one of the ways to strengthen the political executive. Not all countries are undergoing such kind of transformation. In some of them, changes have been restricted to few municipalities. Others have been relatively immune to this international trend towards institutional reforms.
The author of this essay argues that, in a longer time perspective, four major processes have been taking place in the countryside and changing its character in Polish as well as in other countries in Western and Central Europe: de-ruralization, de-agrarianization, development of a new model of agriculture (peasantization/ de-peasantization) and re-stratification. These processes are affecting 1) the place of the countryside in society, 2) the place of agriculture in society and in national economy, 3) the structure of the countryside as a social subsystem. These changes have been taking place throughout the last two decades, albeit with different speed in different time periods. Three of them, de-ruralization, de-agrarianization and re-stratification, are continuations of processes which took place before 1989. Their dynamics does not differ from that in Western and Central-Eastern Europe. The fourth, more original process can also be detected in the development of a new agrarian model: the adjustment of the post-communist structure of agricultural production to the market economy.
The article offers a forecast of GDP per capita growth in Polish regions (NTS2) and subregions (NTS3) between 2006 and 2015, based on the past deviations of regional economies from the national growth path. The simulation shows that highest rates are expected in two metropolitan areas – Warsaw and Poznan. The Mazowieckie region (the one including Warsaw) will become the first to surpass the average level of GDP per capita in EU27. Although Poland will generally close the GDP gap to EU, further polarisation between regions is expected. The per capita income of the most lagging Polish regions will in 2015 reach (in real terms) the 2006 level of Polish national economy.
For more than 20 years, social capital has been gaining popularity both among researchers and policy makers. However, this theory has just reached its maturity. The paper presents classical and critical approaches to the concept. Main aspects and types of social capital are distinguished, followed by a description of the most relevant model for empirical research. Finally, the most important research fields are discussed, including mechanisms explaining the influence of social capital on other social, political and economical phenomena.
The authors have determined that the healthcare system is on the verge of collapse, as it is unable to meet the population’s growing needs for medical care. An analysis of demographic situation and health indices of the adult population in the north-eastern region of Ukraine (based on the example of the Sumy region) was carried out. The study confirms the number of deaths caused by COVID-19, the growth of new cases of coronavirus, and the excessive burden on primary care physicians and infectious disease specialists. It has been determined that the negative state of the domestic healthcare system is due to the shortcomings of public administration and organisation of this system in terms of COVID-19. One of the most important priorities of public policy should be to preserve and strengthen the health of the population, the development of intersectoral cooperation on the principle of ‘healthcare – in all state policies’, and the priority of the nation itself, i.e. the formation of healthy behaviour.
Local referenda are a special form of direct democracy in Poland. As a result of some legal solutions and in the light of practice, now reaching back for over ten years, they must be considered as a populist and ineffective instrument. This refers primarily to the referenda on recalling local authorities such as city council and mayor, accounting for 85%-90% of all such events. The practice of local referenda in Poland embraces approximately 400 cases. During the first three terms in office of the territorial self-government (1990-2002), 347 referenda concerned recalling the communal councils. Such referenda may be initiated only by the residents of the commune. Only 37 of these referenda proved to be decisive, as their attendance turnout exceeded 30%. The effectiveness of referenda is limited mostly to small towns (up to 20 thousand residents), where the threshold turnout is usually reached.
The paper aims to show the relationship between changes in the number of the unemployed in the six largest cities in Poland and the corresponding suburban and peripheral areas. The performed analyses use VAR models. The results indicate that the number of the unemployed is the most flexible in cities, and the smallest in peripheral areas. Long-term relationships in unemployment occurred only between some cities and their suburbs. Stronger short-term relationships were found between cities and their suburbs, but the results varied depending on the city.
The article is an introduction into methodological problems in regional studies. It consists of three parts. The first discusses the nature of regional studies, which include Regional Science as their institutional-academic representative form. The second presents methodological conceptions and standards to be found in social science in the form of two models that can provide a basis for a methodological analysis of regional studies: empirical and humanistic. It is suggested that the two models be treated as complementary. The third part gives a methodological characterisation of regional studies embracing: (1) the domain and field of inquiry of regional studies, (2) methods of the research procedure, and (3) the nature of knowledge.
The article presents 4 capital model as an evaluation method of the region development strategy implementation as well as strategy document analysis. The introduction provides definition of these types of capitals that might be adapted to analysis of sustainable development. Than the authors describes a result of exercise conducted together with representatives of self-government authorities consists of impact assessment of the strategy implementation in the context of selected forms of capital. The results were confronted with opinions of local self-governments authorities as well as small and medium size enterprises. These breakdown enabled authors to indicate weakness of the strategy and potentials trade-offs between different types of capital. As the final result recommendations regarding the updating processes of the strategy were formulated.
The article focuses on the discussion over attempts to re-interpret causes and effects of the state of permanent socio-economic under-development of peripheral regions in Europe invoking Italian Mezzogiorno as a case. Mezzogiorno widely held to be a monolith paradigm of unsuccessful modernization, is being cognitively deconstructed in the face of a two-way running stream of analyses and enunciations. Ideologically imbued political discourse originating in the separatist North reinforces and emphasizes an image of South as a lawless consumer of the Italian state’s resources produced in the North. As a response arises an equally ideologically motivated discourse of academic and cultural elites of the South, whose aims to produce a new, positive image of the South as a space alternative to northern egoism and materialism, a space bridging Europe and the rest of non-Atlantic world. In this context, a discourse of social sciences ever stronger marks its presence; considering conditions of socio-economic development of peripheral regions it forfeits a unidimensional neoliberal approach and instead turns to multidimensional analyses of institutional environment as a primary source of socio-economic dynamics. The debate surrounding Italian Mezzogiorno may constitute at the same time a useful vantage point for a debate over the Polish model of development, especially with regard to peripheral and backward regions in Poland.
This article presents, from a sociological perspective, selected methodological issues concerning urban studies. The authors of such studies either create theories of a city’s rise and fall or describe a changing urban reality, investigating the history of cities. Examples of the first approach are the more or less formalized works of Louis Wirth or Richard Florida, as well as Geoffrey West’s and Louis Bettencourt’s quantitative concept.. The second type of studies is represented by Max Weber, Fernand Braudel and others. The author, although he is not denying the merits of the first approach, claims that the descriptive-historical perspective has so far been more useful in explaining the process of urban development.
The aim of the article was to present the methods of operationalisation and measurement of intellectual capital of the region. The methods of fuzzy sets and structural equation modelling were used. The obtained results were the following: (1) the verification of the conceptual model of intellectual capital of the region and (2) measurement of intellectual capital of region.
The scale and structure of EU funds are one of the key determinants of Cohesion Policy impacts on socio-economic regional development, along with the magnitude of the Keynesian multiplier mechanism, spill-over elasticities, initial stocks of infrastructure, or human and physical capital. The aim of the paper is to analyze how changes in forecasts of Cohesion Policy public financial resources (available in NDPs & NSRFs) affect a counterfactual analysis of the Cohesion Policy impacts on the Polish NUTS-2 regional economies. On the basis of the financial data from the Polish Ministry of Infrastructure and Development which were made available in the years 2008?2013, simulations were carried out for the period 2004?2020 using 16 macroeconomic HERMIN models for the Polish regions. The results show that yearly forecast errors of the EU funds at the regional level account for up to 229%, and the forecast errors of allocations of the EU funds amount even to 32%. The inaccuracy of the forecasts of the EU payments and their volatility considerably distort the results of macroeconomic research of the Cohesion Policy impacts on development processes – even by 88% in the case of the yearly results, and by 49% in the case of cumulative results.
The aim of this paper is to discuss the situation of the EU-10 CEE capital cities during the years since the 2008 financial crisis. The paper concentrates on metropolisation processes that became particularly pronounced at the end of the first stage of the transformation, long before the accession of these countries to the European Union. The main hypothesis is that these processes also continued in the conditions of the economic crisis. As a result, the capital cities in most CEE countries should have done relatively well coming out of the crisis, mainly due to the nature of their diversified economies and the significant share of advanced business services in their structure. As a result, the crisis provided an opportunity to ‘verify’ the viability of the current economic model in the short term, in the specific conditions of transformation economies.
Grzegorz Gorzelak, Bohdan Jałowiecki
The paper shows the basic problems of implementation of the cross-sector cooperation, in the frame of area-based partnerships, for specified rural areas in years 2001-2004 in Poland. In this period partnerships were created with international sources support and with appreciable participation of non-government organisations. The main obstacles to their actions were: the insufficient financial resources, the lack of legal form of self-governments, NGOs and entrepreneurships cooperation with equal rights, tendencies for leaders` domination in group`s actions, weak organisational structures and the lack of long-term strategies. The first effects of cooperation are little; they deal with social affairs and tourist promotion, but they show the positive role of such type coalitions in local development.
Sustaining the development at the local level is associated with many different issues. One of the major ones is the urban growth policy. This can be justified by the importance of space as one of the most important environmental assets, which has to be treated as non-renewable one. At the same time it is necessary to remember that the shape of this policy is influenced by many factors, i.e. legal regulations and current paradigm of urban development. Along with introduction of the sustainable development concept this paradigm evolves. Currently as some of its most important components one should mention urban regeneration of the degraded areas and limiting urban growth to the areas already urbanized. As far as urban regeneration is discussed, it is possible to mention a number of issues that have to be taken into account. At the same time one can regard the inside growth of cities which means reusing degraded areas – as real alternative to the on-going suburbanization and encroachment of urban structures to the areas still remaining its agricultural or natural character.
The aim of this study is to assess the impact of foreign investments on the development of one of the poorest Polish provinces – the Podkarpackie region. The article shows the location, structure and spatial variation of direct foreign investments in the region. The institution method was used to compile data: the number of employees and the size of investment were assigned to places where they were made, but not where the company`s headquarters are located. Results suggest a rather positive impact of foreign investments on local and regional development in the Podkarpackie province, especially in manufacturing industries. The influence of FDI on growth of socio-economic disparities in the region should be rated unfavourably.
Inter-municipal cooperation is a specific phenomenon in local public administration across the world. It is a concept that has been applied globally, particularly in countries with more fragmented local government. Often its implementation helps to solve problems or challenges associated with the existence of fragmented public administration in the delivery of public services. From the existing investigations dedicated to this specific issue carried out in the Czech Republic, it appears that this model of local public administration is very often mentioned in this country; however, its real use in the territory by public administration even after a long period of its existence in this country still has a great potential for development and use even in comparison with how it is abroad. The aim of this article is to identify and characterise the motivation and willingness of municipalities in the country to cooperate in order to meet the current conditions.
The article considers the peculiarities of local government reform based on the examples of Ukraine, Poland, and Latvia. It is substantiated that the Ukrainian vector of European integration requires the implementation of the principles of deconcentration, decentralisation, and subsidiarity in the local governance systems. It is indicated that regional disproportions in the development of the territory of Ukraine, the inability to implement the reform on the ground in specific administrative-territorial units, the spread of corruption schemes – all these are the consequences of an ineffective model of local self-government and public administration of regional development, inherited from the Soviet system, which requires fundamental changes. Broad powers for sub-regional units characterise the Polish model of the administrative-territorial structure. However, this model is underpinned by a high level of political activity and community self-awareness. The Latvian experience of decentralisation of power emphasises the basic principle of success: the volunteer approach to the reform’s implementation. In conclusion, it is proved that for the successful implementation of the Ukrainian local self-government reform, the following factors are necessary: firstly, the victory of Ukrainian armed forces against the military aggression of Russia; secondly, the elaboration of a legal framework for the development of local self-government and the support of society; thirdly, qualified personnel capable of continuing the implementation of the local self-government reform.
The article shows how the Four Capitals Model was applied to evaluate the region development strategy document and its implementation in terms of sustainable development. Firstly, it defines these types of capitals that could be used to analyse the sustainability of regional development. Then the authors describe the results of the exercise carried out together with representatives of the regional authorities, intended to assess the impact of the strategy implementation in the context of the four capitals. The results were confronted with the opinions of local governments and SME owners. This helped to identify the weaknesses of the strategy and potential trade-offs between different types of capital. Finally, the recommendations related to the updating of the strategy were formulated.
The article was published in Polish in "Studia Regionalne i Lokalne", 3/2004
Theory and empirical literature relate educational quality to two main explanatory factors: family education (intergenerational transfer of human capital) and the quality of schools. The model proposed in this paper is intended to verify the significance of these factors in explaining territorial disparities in educational quality in Poland. The dependent variable is the test score of sixth grade pupils in 2002, averaged at municipality level. The test results prove to be strongly correlated with human capital stock in the municipality`s adult population, which points to the key role of intergenerational transfer for educational quality. On the other hand, the role of school resources (understood as expenditure on education) is rather small. Average test results differ significantly between Poland`s historical divisions. Surprisingly, the more urbanised and relatively affluent regions, like Greater Poland (Wielkopolska), Pomerania (Pomorze) and the so-called Regained Territories (ziemie odzyskane) reveal a substantially lower educational quality than the territories in the east and south-east of the country, generally less developed and with a significant share of agriculture in the economy. These differences can only be partly explained by an additional environmental factor, related to the prevalence of state-owned economy before 1990 (e.g. state farms PGRs) and today`s high structural unemployment. Interestingly, the dissimilarities between the historical regions are not only illustrated by average test score levels, but also by parameters of the determining functions for these results. It can be concluded therefore that location in a historical region has a substantial impact on the flexibility of educational outcomes with regard to different explanatory factors.
The paper critically discusses several widespread views about regional development and how it can be stimulated by regional policy. It is argued that in the current development paradigm it is neither possible nor expedient to achieve regional convergence, which in effect would lead to a deep change in understanding the very assumptions of the EU Cohesion policy. It is indicated that external stimuli do not lead to an accelerated growth in lagging regions, which is especially true in the case of infrastructural projects, especially those which are related to incidental events, like expositions or sports championships. One of the most broadly used models for an ex ante evaluation – the HERMIN model – is also discussed.
Human capital stock affects economic growth by raising the productivity of labour in a given area or by enhancing the ability of the regional economy to create and absorb innovations. From the perspective of an academic city, this process can be reinforced by attracting students and researchers to study and work at the local universities. To do this successfully, the city needs not only high quality academic institutions but also a wider labour market for educated individuals and, more generally, the ability to attract the creative class to settle down. The article provides a comparative analysis of the capacity of the largest Polish cities to attract and absorb human capital. The research is based on a unique dataset coming from the nasza-klasa.pl website (which allows users to contact their former classmates). The research concludes with the typology of Polish cities with respect to benefits from performing the academic function.
Several theories of regional development (e.g. new economic geography) claim positive relationship between administrative status of capital cities and their economic and population growth. Availability of capital goods as well as direct and indirect demand generated by administrative institutions are among factors which accelerate development. However, most of empirical studies so far have concentrated either on national capitals or on federal states. In our article we conduct empirical tests comparing the impact of reforms implemented in 1975 and 1999 in Poland on the development of cities gaining or losing their regional capital functions. On the basis of those results the article indicates differences in impacts of both reforms and attempts to explain those differences.
Sustainability of municipal finance implies steady revenue generation. Pinpointing their determinants creates the necessary background in their management and policy creation. Great municipal dependence on central government finance remains a serious challenge in the process of fiscal decentralisation. So far, studies have been focusing on the expenditure side, while revenues were treated mostly marginally. A random-effects Generalized Least Squares (GLS) panel regression for the period of 2015–2019 is estimated for targeting revenue determinants of municipalities in North Macedonia. Own and total tax revenues are modelled separately through the impact of capital expenditures, salary expenditures, active transparency index, municipality type, and local government’s ideology. The general results indicate that capital expenditure, municipal transparency, and the level of development are significant determinants of municipal revenues in both estimated models. Using such knowledge on municipal revenue reactions can help governments formulate policies that provide sustainable and effective fiscal decentralisation, lowering the pressure on central governments in developing economies.
Globalisation – characterised by dynamic economic growth, increasing exploitation of the natural environment, and deepening social inequalities – brings negative consequences and is strongly perceptible also in local communities. A new approach to development policy based on the idea of sustainable development must be incorporated into local governments’ strategies, programmes, and actions. We adopted exploratory approach to determine the level and identify the spatial patterns of sustainable development of Polish poviats. The aggregated (synthetic) indicators of economic, social, and environmental development were developed to analyse the spatial patterns of the poviats’ development trends. Our research shows that in Poland there are overwhelmingly more poviats characterised by lower development than those better developed in all three analysed categories. Hierarchical analysis using the Ward’s method revealed that Polish poviats can be divided into three relatively homogeneous clusters in terms of development levels. The largest group consists of poviats characterised by the relatively lowest level of sustainability in economic and social areas, and the highest – by environmental development. Analyses using the Moran method made it possible to determine the so-called spatial regimes of clusters. The captured spatial relationships indicate that selected poviats have a significant impact on the level of development in the neighbouring poviats.
Nowadays, the development of local communities is hindered by crises, external shocks, and disturbance. Under such circumstances, an important characteristic is their resilience, i.e. the ability to withstand negative external influences and ensure further growth. Border communities are particularly sensitive to external stresses stemming from geopolitical and economic changes. The article aims to identify key determinants and indicators of territorial community resilience in the EU-Ukraine cross-border area. The methodological foundations of the research comprise the main provision of economic theory, regional development, and spatial economy theory, etc. The methods of comparative, economic, and statistical analysis are used in the study of various dimensions of community resilience. The main results of the study of the peculiarities of socioeconomic development of Ukraine’s border communities and existing opportunities for the use of instruments of cross-border cooperation derive from a sociological survey based on the expert opinion method.
The main goal of this article is to investigate how the structure of inter-sectoral links affects the dynamics of human capital. This structure has been split into related variety (RV) and unrelated variety (UV). The assembled empirical evidence shows that RV positively affects the rate of human capital growth in a region, while UV has negative effects both in the group of all Polish regions and in the most developed regions located in western Poland. Moreover, among all the analysed control variables, only RV determines the existence of the effect of human capital convergence.
The French territorial system is marked by a historical very large communal dispersion. Strangely the French State, although considered very strong, has never managed to impose the merger of these municipalities, as was the case in most other European countries. This resistance of local elected representatives, often also national parliamentarians, then led the central government to use another strategy: their grouping in public institutions of intermunicipal cooperation (EPCI). The creation of the Metropolis of Lyon is, therefore, very original. Created by the law of 27th January, 2014, it is the only “metropolis” with the status of territorial collectivity and merges on its territory the Rhône department and the former “urban community” of Lyon. This metropolis is thus unique in France, and the authors will tend to verify whether it could serve as a model to follow by other metropolises, considering the case of the first institutionalised metropolis in Poland, namely the GZM Metropolis, which is struggling with structural problems. The GZM Metropolis was established in 2017 by the Polish Parliament’s law and provided with a specific governance regime comparable to the “manager and council model” and decision-making based on a double majority of the municipalities and population. After the first five years of functioning, the leaders of this first Polish metropolis seem to be ready to adjust their metropolitan institutions, understanding its limits and searching for inspiration at the international level.
The purpose of writing the article is to study the effectiveness of water resources management in the Black Sea region of Ukraine in the context of sustainable development under the conditions of military operations. The theoretical approaches to defining the essence and functions of water resources management through the prism of sustainable development goals have been considered. The main problems of water resources management in the regions of Ukraine are systematised and the ways of their solution at the present stage of the reform are outlined. The author’s approach to evaluating the effectiveness of water resources management in the context of the model of sustainable development is proposed using the example of the Black Sea region of Ukraine. Methodical approaches to assessing the effectiveness of regional water resources management that includes the main stages, the criteria for assessing, indicators for each criterion, and a mathematical apparatus for their calculation have been developed. In accordance with the author’s approach, a diagnosis of the effectiveness of regional water resources management was conducted based on the example of the Black Sea region.
Current glocalisation processes require the identification of priority areas for Ukraine’s further integration into the international economy. The right choice of direction, tools and forms of implementation allows the government to determine, justify and implement a competitive strategy for the country. The study aimed to determine the relationship between international economic integration and Ukraine’s global competitive power. Identifying Ukraine’s sectoral comparative advantages in trade with the EU and evaluating the index of the regional orientation of Ukraine for specific groups of goods and services made it possible to define the effects of economic collaboration with the European region. The assessment of the complementarity index of Ukrainian–European trade relations revealed that Ukraine and the European Union are main trading partners. Furthermore, the analysis of the mechanism of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union proved that the agreement actively contributes to the growth of Ukraine’s global competitive power. Comparative analysis in historical retrospect revealed priority areas for improving the integration processes which help to form the main competitive advantages of the country.
The paper explores the application of the gravity model, namely the delineation of the urban predominant influence areas via the generation of the multiplicatively weighted Voronoi diagram, to the socio-economic regionalisation and administrative territorial division of Ukraine, including the existing state of affairs and several proposals on their improvement. The research uses quantitative statistical data on interregional migration and rail passenger traffic within the country, processed via the Statistica analytics software, and a subsequent spatial analysis conducted by GIS. The findings suggest that the gravity model can serve as a tool for optimisation the administrative territorial division, as well as for the delineation of the planning regions and urban hinterlands. At the same time, it has certain limitations and should not be treated as a panacea for regional planning and development.
Structural funds – instruments of cohesion policy – are aimed to support local and regional development and to speed up regional convergence. For the last few years they have been the main source that enable realization of different activities and investments on local level in Poland. In the light of systematic extension of financial resources provided within structural funds effective absorption of those funds becomes a matter of great importance. Experience of previous implementation period gives some clues on the perspective of use of structural funds provided for Polish regions in 2007–2013 period. The results of previous research showed that effective absorption of pre-accession and structural funds depends on many both material and untouchable factors but the most important for effective absorption is adequate institutional system with procedures of programming, financial management, monitoring, evaluation etc. This paper presents the results of research conducted in 2008. The authors focused on three main areas: experience of 2004–06 period of implementation – identification of successes and barriers of structural funds implementation system, practical use of these experiences to improve institutional system for 2007–13 period and finally priorities of 16 Regional Operational Programmes realized in Polish voivodeships.
The article presents a model of functional-spatial structure in the strategy of supra-local development, which is an attempt to translate the assumptions of the new planning paradigm, referred to in the world literature as strategic spatial planning, into Polish ground. In this regard, the new legal regulations set forth in the Act of July 15, 2020 on amending the Act on the principles of development policy and certain other acts were used, which, due to their high generality, allowed the authors’ approach to their interpretation and implementation. The paper presents the various dimensions of integration of strategic and spatial planning undertaken in the Polish legal system over the years up to the present day. In addition, the role of supra-local development strategies in integrated development planning in Poland is defined, and different types of functional areas are described, which are the starting point for differentiating the scope of the functional-spatial structure model. Then the description of the most important elements of the model was deepened, and other elements of the spatial dimension in the new supra-local development strategies were presented. The added value of integrating the spheres of strategic and spatial planning was pointed out, which is important for improving their effectiveness and efficiency, as well as for increasing public acceptance of the measures taken.
The article describes the forecasts for the 2004-2006 National Development Plan implementation on the performance of Poland`s economy up to 2010. The estimations are based on the Polish version of HERMIN model. Several development paths for Poland are predicted upon varying assumptions on the ability to absorb the EU assistance, and varying efficiency of use of those funds. In general, it is demonstrated that Poland`s accession to EU will bring a significant economic improvement by increasing GDP growth rate and depressing unemployment rate.
Internet shops are becoming an increasingly popular form of trading. In 2006, their turnover in Poland reached 1.3 billion zlotys, or about 1% of total retail trade in the country. According to different experts, the sales and turnover indices are on an upward trend as the numbers of shoppers buying on-line and also e-shops are still increasing. Interestingly, a lot of research show that the central points of e-business concentration are metropolitan areas although the administration of e-shops is possible from virtually any place in the world. This indicates that economic, technological and social factors have an impact on the growth and concentration of e-shops.
The goal of the paper is to indicate similarities and differences between strategic priorities of socio-economic development on the basis of research conducted in two local communities: Tymbark and Slopnice. The paper is based on a methodological approach called the AHP method, which is used to evaluate the benefits and costs of the basic criteria of socio-economic development and prioritizing models of development. The research indicates key factors of local development in the framework of the endogenous development paradigm. Moreover, the preferred development models have been chosen in the compared communities.
The paper refers to sublocal units within metropolitan governance, focusing on Wrocław in the context of multi-level governance and good governance. In Poland, such units function as ancillary units of municipalities (gminy). The paper describes their legal status and functioning within the Polish territorial government and discusses selected urban districts (powiaty). The analysis is based on legal acts and interviews with people involved in the local and sublocal government in Wrocław. The organisation of metropolitan governance based on smaller units is an efficient solution applied in cities worldwide, however, in the case of Wrocław, the borough model leaves a broad potential to develop this element of municipal management structure. Currently, a clear concept of their role in the city is needed.
Neither the history nor the theory of economics indicates unambiguously the sources of high yet stable economic growth. The aim of this paper is a thorough assessment of various growth determinants in German Bundesländer in the years 1991-2009 in terms of both current levels and recent developments. In order to evaluate the economic growth potential the summary index (SG) encompassing various dimensions of economy has been constructed and carefully calculated. Such an approach gives a holistic and comprehensive view on economic growth factors, encompassing business and political dimensions prevailing in the media and a scientific approach drawing on a specific methodology. Our results confirm to some extent earlier studies pointing to existing West-East discrepancies in Germany. However, one must not ignore achievements of the new Bundesländer as measured by positive time developments. Conceptual framework put forward shall be seen as scaffolding, at the same time synthesizing and differentiating various growth determinants, a possible “navigation tool” for other case studies.
This article shows the profiles of people who hold at least the second cadence on the position of village mayor, mayor or president of the city. According to the paradigm New Public Management, the person who manages the community is often antidote on its problems, the key for its economical success and the chance of better life its inhabitants. Doubtlessly, it is connected with a charisma of the leader. What is hidden under this term? The aim of this article is to answer the question whether it is possible to show some personality features and the model of management which decide on the chance of holding the position of the mayor of community on the next cadence. The method of the studies contain the interpretation of the personality test NEO-FFI and the questionnaire concerning the model of management of the community. The results show that the people which are the managers of the community must have some level of the main personality features in fact. Only then it is possible to hold the next cadence. It relates mainly to extraversion and conscientiousness. The model of management chosen by them is of great significance too.
The aim of this article is to outline growth tendencies and growth factors in the subregions (NUTS 3) of Central and Eastern Europe in the period 1998–2006. A wide range of complementary research methods has been used in order to triangulate results, starting with classical beta and sigma convergence analysis, to kernel density estimation, transition matrices, spatial autocorrelation and multi-dimensional comparisons. Some rarely discussed aspects of the influence of capital regions on growth processes have been taken into account. An additional analysis of the data in relation to country averages produced results independent of the country context. As a result, we have been able to answer the following questions: do the analysed countries experience regional convergence or rather divergence/polarisation processes? What factors determine the dynamics of regional growth? What are the main dimensions of spatial disparities in Central and Eastern Europe?
The reforms driven by New Public Management (NPM) led to the introduction of management principles in local governments, marketisation and outsourcing. They made the greatest impact in the United Kingdom, but were also put in place in other European countries such as Ireland, Sweden, Germany, and – to the least degree – in France (compared to other countries discussed in this paper). There is a risk that NPM-inspired reforms may come to lose sight of the underlying social purpose of public services. NPM has not however become a new, universal model for public sector management. Issues tackled in the debate concerning the reform of public services have moved (mostly in the UK) beyond the concerns of NPM towards the emerging concept of networked community governance.
The article deals with the fundamental theoretical and practical problems of regional development, the causes of poverty and wealth of regions, and factors influencing change of the region`s situation. The answers are being sought in the relations between the location criteria stemming from a current paradigm of development and the region`s features, the type and character of external factor influencing the region and the region`s reaction to these factors. The theoretical considerations are being illustrated by contemporary and historical examples.
The paper offers a comparison of changes which have been taking place in the eastern regions of Poland and Germany in the recent years. It sets out to identify the main problems of these areas and explain how they have affected economic development processes. The development trajectories of the eastern regions of Poland and Germany are discussed in the context of the reuni?cation and trans-formation processes, and are related to the policies implemented by the public authorities. In its conclusions, the study evaluates the relevance and scale of the problems affecting the eastern parts of Germany and Poland, among them the effectiveness of their regional policies.
The aim of the paper has been to determine the reasons for technological in effectiveness of the economies of Polish regions (i.e. voivodeships). In order to do so, we have used the modified method of non-radial Data Envelopment Analysis, which allowed us to determine partial indexes of technological effectiveness separately for the labour factor and the material capital factor. As a result, we have been able to state that the main source of tech nological ineffectiveness of technologies used in regional economies lies in relatively lower and spatially differentiated technological effectiveness compared to the technological effectiveness of the material capital factor. In view of the results, we have extended the study over three sectors of the economy and considered the substitution processes occurring between them. Adapting such a research objective has made it possible to identify the reasons of the ineffectiveness of the analyzed economies and of those characterized by a relatively low technological effectiveness. A technology has been proposed which will help to overcome the technological inadequacies in the most effective way.
The paper analyses the Irish way of implementation of the structural assistance from the European Social Fund within a context of Ireland`s development strategy. Identification of the factors influencing considerable efficiency and effectiveness of Ireland`s performance is the article`s main focus. The paper begins with a review of the Irish labour market situation and, responding to it, human capital development policy of 1990s. Then, implementation and evaluation of the measures supported by the ESF within a programming period 1994-1999 are examined in detail. Finally, some conclusions and recommendations from the Irish case for Poland are outlined.
In this paper I try to outline 3 theses: 1) In the experiences of the XX century the model of socially minded regional policy was the dominating phenomenon. 2) In the experiences of XXI century the model of globally minded regional policy will be the dominating phenomenon. 3) The transformation from the old to the new model is taking place in the great Sturm und Drang Periode of the years 1980–2020. The shift from the old to the new model of regional policy is firmly linked to the parallel transformation of the cohesion policies designed and implemented by the European Union. This is the shift from mechanically to organically minded cohesion policies.
In the study, the impact of tramline construction on changes of apartment prices was investigated. The object of study was Podgórze, i.e. district XIII of Kraków, where a tramline towards Mały Płaszów was built in 2010. The authors used the base of transaction prices from 2008-2013 for apartments located within 500 m of the newly built tramline. Statistical analysis using the multiple regression model showed a 91% coefficient of price determination by the adopted attributes. It was shown that the „communication/transport” attribute explains 27.8% of property values, which gives the average real estate price increase by over PLN 600 per sq. m calculated per unit price after the construction of the new tramline.
Quality of life is discussed in the paper in the context of human needs. In this conceptual framework, sexual needs are considered as well as their relations with the concept of pathology in social sciences and theology. Prostitution is analysed as a special form of sexual pathology and a social service that fulfils human needs and influences quality of life. The location of prostitution in the city of Bydgoszcz is analysed in details, as well as models of spatial distribution of ‘social agencies’ in the city.
Theory and empirical literature relates educational quality to two main explanatory factors: intergenerational transfer of human capital and the quality of schools, school composition and economic conditions. Based on these findings a model explaining territorial differentiation of educational quality is proposed. The dependent variable is test score of 6th grade students, averaged at municipality level. As it turns out, educational outcome is highly conditioned on local human capital stock. The role of traditionally meant school quality (resources) is minor (although higher in rural areas than in cities. Average school outcome differs significantly along historical divisions of Poland, not only in levels, but also in parameters of determining function. Legacies of the past and related socioeconomic processes have a substantial impact on the sensitivity of educational quality to different explanatory factors.
European regional support has grown in parallel with European integration. The funds targeted at achieving greater economic and social cohesion and reducing disparities within the EU have more than doubled in relative terms since the end of the 1980. making development policies the second most important policy area in the EU. The majority of the development funds have been earmarked for Objective 1 regions, i.e. regions where GDP per capita is below the 75% of the EU average. However, the European development policies have come under increasing criticism based on two facts: the lack of upward mobility of assisted regions and the absence of regional convergence. This paper assesses, using cross-sectional and panel data analyses, the failure so far of European development policies to fulfil their objective of delivering greater economic and social cohesion by examining how European Structural Fund support is allocated among different development axes in Objective 1 regions. We find that, despite the concentration of development funds on infrastructure and, in less extent on business support, the returns to commitments of these axes are not significant. Support to agriculture has short term positive effects on growth, but these wane quickly, and only investment in education and human capital which only represents about one-eight of the total commitments has medium-term positive and significant returns.
In many European countries local governments, in particular on the municipal level, search for new solutions to improve the governing process. The aim of this paper is to present an innovative model, based on the idea of New Public Governance management, which operates in the city of Tampere, situated in southern Finland. Introduced in 2007, the model is based on three main pillars – strong leadership, effective and responsible service provision, and citizen involvement in the decision-making process. The paper describes each of these elements and indicates its practical advantages and disadvantages. The analysis has been conducted on the basis of official city documents and interviews conducted with experts in Finnish local government as well as leading local politicians from Tampere. In conclusion, it is pointed out that although the Tampere model should certainly be labelled as innovative, the solutions adopted generate some difficulties. These include tensions between politicians and administrators as well as problems related to the coordination of city services and the attitude of politicians and administrators towards citizen participation.
This paper examines the impact of the implementation of participatory budget (PB) projects on the development and creation of public spaces in the city. The first part of the paper describes the main assumptions and models of participatory budgeting as well as the legal basis and rules of PB implementation and financing in Poland. In the second part, those are confronted with the implementation of PB (civic and green) in Lublin in 2015-2019. In the third one, detailed analysis of the PB rounds 2015-2017 show that 86% of investment projects submitted and 87% of projects selected for implementation were directly associated with activities in public space. Furthermore, the spatial distribution and thematic scope of those investments in 27 districts of Lublin in relation to 10 categories selected by the authors as well as the motivation and activity of residents of individual districts in applying for projects were presented. The fourth part shows the changes in Lublin’s public spaces caused by the implementation of PB projects and Lublin’s experience in relation to other cities in Poland. The summary includes recommendations on how to effectively implement BP to create a high quality public space in cities. Three aspects are distinguished: 1) organizational and procedural; 2) mobilisation of the stakeholders and 3) implementation of projects.
The paper discusses the subject of intersectoral cooperation in sustainable development projects in order to identify social value created by the cooperating partners. There were several questions posed to find out what kind of social value is created in sustainable development projects undertaken by stakeholders from different sectors, and what is the role of such intersectoral cooperation in the process of creating social value. The empirical part of the work presents case studies from selected projects. As the results demonstrate, the use of mutual potentials allows for a more effective creation and use of value by a wider circle of stakeholders. A higher quality of services is achieved and, what is more, a wider range of social value is created. Social value in the local cooperation model is universal in terms of implementation, creation and use for various crosssectoral sustainable development projects.
In the last decades, especially in Europe, a process of the rebirth of national and regional identities of small ethnic groups has been taking place, leading in many cases to a change of language situation and to attempts to stop and even to revert processes of linguistic assimilation. The article presents individual cases of ethnic/regional movements having “language issue” in their programmes, and makes an attempt of a typology of regions and countries according to their language situation and policy. The language question also appears at the European Union level. The EU institutions try to combine the ideological principle of multilingualism (equality of all official languages of the EU members) with pragmatism implying minimizing the number of working languages. At the “civil” level the EU supports the model of multilingualism of the inhabitants as a means to facilitate functioning of the common labour, commodity, service and capital market while maintaining cultural identities of its member states. In individual countries the language policy is competence of national authorities; there are no common binding rules on the territory of the whole EU. As a result, there are differences among countries in their attitudes towards languages of ethnic minorities.
Investment policy is a driving force in the transformation of cities. It plays a significant role both in terms of daily living conditions and in the long-term consequences of decisions that are taken. The residents’ opinions about the investment policy should be accorded a special value. The aim of this paper is to analyse and estimate the scale of empowerment of the investment policy of all 71 cities of the Śląskie Voivodeship. Three models of residents’ participation are used in the paper: symmetric, consultative and asymmetric. The questionnaire survey and desk research form the basis for assigning cities to the proposed models. The analysis reveals that the mechanism of empowerment is becoming more and more important for Silesian local governments, although residents’ involvement in urban investment policies is still far from satisfactory.
The paper is devoted to the problems of development of peripheral regions. It contains a review of theories of endogenous and exogenous development and a description of their evolution. Based on this theoretical discussion two model strategies are presented: (1) modernization of endogenous potential and (2) building the new endogenous potential of a region. In its further part the paper focuses on the experiences of peripheral regions in Portugal and Finland. Finally it offers the recommendations for public policies in the peripheral regions of Eastern Poland.
The article is devoted to a critical discussion of several widely accepted principles of regional development and regional policies. It is argued that the in the current development paradigm it is impossible to achieve regional convergence, which should lead to a deep change in understanding the very assumptions of the Cohesion policy of the EU. It is indicated that external impulses do not lead to an accelerated growth in lagging regions, which is especially true in the case of infrastructural projects, especially those which are related to incidental events, like expositions or sport championships. One of the most broadly used model for an ex ante evaluation – the HERMIN model – is also discussed.
The article concentrates on vehicle tax, which is interesting not only due to its efficiency, but also high mobility of the tax base. The study aims to examine the correlation between fiscal results and municipal policies, from the perspective of such criteria as the type of municipality and taxpayer category. The study is based on correlation analysis, in which Pearson’s independence test and Spearman’s rho coefficient are used. The results confirm that the tested correlations do exist. Municipal tax policy influences tax revenues of the studied tax, though the results in each unit are different between the current and later periods. Moreover, in the case of vehicle tax, municipal authorities’ main action was to lower the upper tax rates. For municipalities in which these relations were the most visible, econometric models were built. These illustrate the effects of tax policy in relation to certain taxpayer categories.
The study aimed to examine the determinants of car choice in daily trips of the inhabitants of four Polish cities: Białystok, Gdańsk, Kraków, and Warszawa. Data from the Eurostat’s Quality of Life 2019 study was used to achieve this goal. The results of the empirical exercise revealed that the main factors affecting travel mode choice included the respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics. The perceived satisfaction with air quality, the city’s noise level, and public transport quality were found among the important predictors of car choice. The homogeneity of travel mode preferences at the city level was also analysed.
System transformation is a long-lasting process which is reflected in the model of property relationships and the way inhabited environment is created. This paper discusses the Polish urban area as an example of a neoliberal model of space transformation characterized by: atrophy of the public sector, arbitrary spatial order, and deepening spatial segregation. The transformation of the urban area in a neoliberal model has affected the legal order, spatial planning, privatization of housing resources, and public infrastructure. The paper is based on source literature, official statistics, and an analysis of Polish legal acts.
The aim of the paper is to analyze the factors determining the likelihood of reelection of Polish mayors. In order to identify the factors impacting the likelihood of reelection, the author estimates the parameters of the binomial model. The results show that spending in the election year, especially on housing, is greatly appreciated by the inhabitants of cities. The mayors who are very likely to be reelected are leaders of cities that are successful in acquiring EU funds, where the labour market is stable, and the material situation of inhabitants and businesses does not deteriorate during their term. Cities that are capitals of voivodeships offer a greater likelihood of reelection, as do those formerly in the Austrian partition or on the so-called Reclaimed Lands of Western Poland. Variables belonging to the domain of sociology of politics have an equally significant impact on the analyzed likelihood.
Information Society technologies are aimed at raising productivity while reducing time and costs of materials and energy for the economy. Specialists have also observed that ICTs, which have become significantly cheaper, are in huge demand for individual (household) use. Individual applications of ICT in Poland’s economy lead to a growth in different human activities. They impact the economies of Poland in a similar way to the well-known take-back (rebound) effect, which increases the efficiency of resource use and electrical energy consumption in households.
The rising costs of educational tasks due to the decreasing number of students force municipal authorities to take cost-saving measures, including the most radical form, that is closing down schools. Such decisions are not popular with the local residents and in all the examined municipalities have caused conflicts between the stakeholders of local educational policy. The aim of the article is to present actions taken by municipal authorities to reduce the negative effects of conflicts arising in connection with the liquidation of schools. The authors focus on the activities of municipal authorities to curb the negative consequences of the conflict, but turn out to be financially ineffective. The article was based on the analysis of the subject literature, as well as the results of empirical research conducted by the authors. The theoretical framework draws on selected concepts of conflict management and the polarity management model.
Uptade from 2.03.2021: Parts of this article were subsequently used in the following publication: Swianiewicz, P., & Brzóska, A. (2020). Demand Elasticity for Local Public Transport in Polish Cities: Do Local Policies Matter?. Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences, 16(61), 125-142
After 1990, the number of local public transport passengers has been systematically decreasing at the expense of individual transport, which led to an increase in traffic congestion and deterioration of air quality in cities. However, for the last few years, a reversal of this trend has been observed in some cities. The article, using the data on the present number and recent changes in the number of passengers in nearly 100 Polish cities, discusses regression models to explain the factors influencing the diversity of demand for public transport services and its dynamics. The independent variables of the model refer both to the characteristics of cities (their socio-economic environment) and the organisation of services (e.g. organisational and legal forms of local transport companies, tariff policies, etc.). The results show that the density of the public transport network is the most significant factor explaining variation of the demand, while the level of ticket prices is almost insignificant. Demand in the largest cities has also recently been on the increase, but the relationship between the demand and the population size of the city is not a linear one.
The problem of centralization and decentralization is very interesting and important in management science, political science, sociology, political economy, economics and regional sciences. The discussion over the centralization versus decentralization is a never-ending one. It is an age-old battle of standardization versus autonomy, corporate efficiency versus local effectiveness and pressure on costs and resources versus accommodation of specific local needs. The advantages of each model are, in essence, the disadvantages of the other. Decisions to decentralize or centralize must be derived from a careful cost–benefit analysis. The debate over whether to centralize or decentralize is not so much over which type of strategy is more effective but the degree to which each strategy is used in combination with one another.
The article discusses political leadership in local government. Change from traditional local government to local governance requires also institutional changes and new roles played by local leaders. The notion of political leader is limited to persons having democratic legitimacy for their role played in local politics. It excludes people, who might be influential but remain outside formal democratic institutions of local government. The article distinguishes between type (which depends on formal institutional settings) and style (more dependent on personal characteristics) of leadership. The article discusses selected theoretical concepts of type and style of leadership and tries to refer them to Polish local governments. Recent Polish reforms have brought a change from the type which was close to a collective model to one closer to a strong mayor form. Analysis of four initiative in 2 Polish cities (Poznan and Ostrow Wielkopolski) allows to formulate some conclusions on citizens’ perception of actual styles of local political leadership. The largest proportion of citizens in analysed cities prefers a style which is close to consensus facilitator. But in a real behaviour of leaders, citizens see more of city boss style, which might be characterized by the implementation of an own vision with internal resources existing within local government structures. Comparison of citizens’ preferences with the perception of actual behaviour of leaders allows to compute an Expectation Gap Index. The gap is usually quite narrow in initiatives focused on the construction of broad development programmes, but it becomes wider if we turn to more concretely focused projects.
The article focuses on the beliefs of the regional political elites in Poland about the models of democracy, operationalised as opinions about political representation, direct democracy and elite integration. The empirical basis is a questionnaire survey of 400 members of regional political elites carried out in 2017. The sample consists of 400 councillors of the 2014-2018 term of regional (voivodship) assemblies and town councils of big cities. The data show that an incoherence of views characterises the regional political elite: they do not form a more general vision of the democratic process, and detailed opinions on representation, direct democracy and elite integration poorly correlate with independent variables, including those describing political affiliations, i.e. party affinity or location on the left-right scale. The primary explanation for this incoherent image is the thesis about the lack of professionalisation of the regional elite.
The issue of political leadership is widely studied and described in the literature. It should be noted that this problem can be analyzed both at the institutional and the individual level. The institutional factors determine the way of selecting local leaders and the scope of their competence. The individual features, on the other hand, create a leadership style. Cities have a presidential system with a strong mayor. In the case of cohabitation, though, this system can be destabilized because, instead of peaceful institutional co-existence, the institutions may be in conflict. After the local elections of 2014, half of the Polish municipalities had to confront the problem of cohabitation. The aim of this paper is to present the question of local leadership in the context of cohabitation.
The article aims to identify the geographical dimension of social (in)justice in the context of the existing permanent differences in the level of socio-economic development in Poland from the geographical and historical point of view. It also discusses the consequences of these inequalities for development policy on regional and local levels. The study consists of two essential parts. The first one presents synthetic deliberations on the geographical aspect of the social justice discussed. In the second part, an attempt was made to exemplify a geographical dimension of social (in)justice through the analysis of the spatial distribution of the socio-economic development level (a synthetic indicator) and selected partial indicators. In addition, the presence of dependencies of the socio-economic development level and the degree of political support for political fractions proclaiming the slogan of “social justice” was verified. The results of the conducted research confirm the existence of considerable developmental differences in the Polish space. Their strength is historically determined and, despite the passage of time, their pattern invariably corresponds to the former partition boundaries. These disparities are not minimised and the influence of economic growth on the income rise remains limited, especially in economically weaker areas, which leads to growing social dissatisfaction. As a result, one can conclude that in Poland those differences constitute the geographical dimension of social (in)justice.
The article presents the factors influencing the choice of local transport delivery modes in Poland. It is the first quantitative study conducted on a representative sample of municipalities since the 1990s, and it concerns three service delivery modes: contracting-out, cooperation, and corporatization. Most local governments do not invest their own resources to deliver local transport, but rather act as a private market supply regulator and contract the service out to private enterprises. Some of them act based on functional connections within metropolitan areas, joining forces with other local governments. More affluent and densely populated cities opt for corporatization, which gives them greater political control over the delivery process. The presented results are useful for decision-makers who have to select the mode of local transport service provision, as they characterize the municipalities which, in 2017, chose one of the three analyzed modes.
The purpose of this article is to establish whether regional convergence is present in Poland in terms of GDP per capita. An analysis was conducted for the years 1995–2005 at the voivodeship (NUTS2), sub-regional (NUTS3 classification) and intra-voivodeship levels. Convergence means a reduction of income disparities between regions. The opposite phenomenon is called divergence. The author of the paper used a method – proposed by Quah (1993, 1996a, 1996b) – that enables an analysis of the full distribution dynamics of relative per capita income. It consists in the estimation of transition matrices derived from Markov’s processes and in the use of nonparametric kernel estimators of the relative density function for relative GDP distribution per capita in subsequent years. The method facilitates verification of the club convergence hypothesis, which is impossible using the classic methodology (Barro and Sala-i-Martin 2003). It is clear that income distribution is stable and that there is no unconditional convergence both between voivodeships and between sub-regions. In general, voivodeships as well as sub-regions were impoverished as a result of a faster-than-normal growth of the richest voivodeships (mazowieckie voivodeship) and sub-regions (large cities, mainly Warsaw and Poznan). The diversification of relative GDP per capita grows in time both in the case of voivodeships and sub-regions. The convergence model that can be seen both at NUTS2 and NUTS3 levels is club convergence (polarisation): relatively the poorest and – separately – the richest regions are becoming similar and converge at different income levels. The analysis also includes the occurrence of sub-region convergence within voivodeships, with the only observable convergence model being club convergence.
The author attempts to determine the size, structure and diversification of the economic base of towns and cities in the Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodship, as well as their evolution in the years 2008-2015. An additional objective is to determine the relationship between the level of economic growth of the examined units and the state of their economic base. The obtained results confirm the hypothesis that the economic sector is not a significant part of total employment in the surveyed units. At the same time, the exogenous employment structure is poorly diversified, and in the period under study it decreased even further, exposing local economies to external shocks. There is also a positive, although weak effect of the increase in local specialization on the level of revenue in local self-government units and on their level of unemployment.
The article seeks to identify socio-economic conditions that affect the demand of individual consumers for cars and to analyze spatial differences in these conditions. To achieve this objective, econometric modelling is conducted. The analysis was conducted in all poviats in Poland and covered the years 2010-2015. The findings show that the demand for new cars is stimulated by incomes of potential consumers and by a net in-migration, while the level of unemployment together with prices of complementary goods (especially petrol prices) negatively affect the demand for cars. Moreover, geographically weighted regression shows that the identified conditions differ across the country, which may explain the noticeable differences in the level of motorization between poviats.
The purpose of this study is to identify the determinants of innovation of enterprises in the Regional Innovation System context. We analyse factors that determine regional innovation in a less developed region, taking the Podkarpackie region in Poland as our empirical counterpart. We examine how the EU economic policy instruments influence the innovation of enterprises within the context of the Regional Innovation Systems. We propose a model for the implementation of innovations and test our hypotheses based on the data drawn from the period of 2011–2014. The paper provides insights on a rather successful story from Poland. We posit that enterprises use only specific public policy instruments and that companies’ demand for innovation-supporting instruments changes, reacting to the business cycle phase and to financial incentives.
The aim of the paper is to indicate metropolitan areas in Poland as well as to provide the assessment of their situation. The first part is devoted to literature review focused on identification of the most significant trade-offs of metropolisation process in regional and local scale. This constitutes a base for indication of the most important cities in Poland for which delineation of their metropolitan areas are provided. In the next part these metropolitan areas were characterised to reveal obstacles in their development. This enables authors to provide recommendations regarding activates that should be undertaken to facilitate growth of the largest cities and their surroundings.
Migration management is one of the key tasks faced by regional authorities in Poland, which experience deepening processes of shrinking and ageing of population. The aim of the article is to determine whether policy makers are aware of the role of migration processes and migration policy, to show their presence in demographic development strategies, and to describe the activities undertaken at the regional level in response to the ongoing demographic processes. The analysis is based on the example of the Łódzkie, Opolskie, and West Pomeranian voivodships. The article proposes an analytical model assuming a gradual process of decision-makers’ reaction to demographic changes. An analysis of documents and interviews with people responsible for regional demographic policy confirms they are aware of ongoing population processes and their consequences, at the same time, however, there is a lack of actions aimed at stimulating inflows of foreigners. The initiatives aimed at stopping the population from emigrating are more important.
The paper focuses on problems related to modelling the development of maritime economic space. This entirely new issue has emerged from the recent changes in the intensity of use of marine areas. First, the economic significance of maritime space is discussed, followed by a simple model based on maritime spatial rent which aims at explaining the patterns of its development. This model encapsulates the interplay between both market and public choice factors that affect the development of maritime space. The paper also includes a discussion of attempts to obtain a monetary value of maritime spatial rent for key offshore maritime sectors in Poland. The paper concludes with suggestions on further developments in this field.
The article discusses the functions of the Committee of the Regions with respect to the legislative process and politics of the European Union, as well as to the politics of the Member States. The main assumption of the analysis, based on the deductive method, is that because of the current political situation in Europe, in addition to being a body giving opinions on the law, the Committee of the Regions should have a greater, fundamental role in shaping the future directions of development for the entire European Union. The discussion is set in the context of fiscal federalism theory and one of its elements assuming that a federal structure has a role in mitigating conflicts, as well as referring to the hybrid nature of the contemporary models of development. It is underpinned by the relevant literature, analyses commissioned by the European Commission, materials of the Committee of the Regions, findings of earlier studies, and the so-called impact reports of the Committee of the Regions published from 2014 to 2017.
The aim of this article is the description of growth tendencies and growth factors in subregions (NUTS 3) of Central and Eastern Europe in 1998–2006. Wide range of complementary research methods has been used in order to triangulate results – starting with classical beta and sigma convergence analysis, through kernel density estimation, transition matrices to spatial autocorrelation and multidimensional comparisons. Rarely exposed aspect of influence of capital regions on growth processes was taken into account. Additional analysis of the data in relation to country average allowed to obtain conclusions independent of the country context. As a result, it appeared to be possible to answer the following questions: do the analyzed countries face regional convergence or divergence/polarization process?; what factors determine the dynamics of regional growth?; what are the main dimensions of spatial disparities in Central and Eastern Europe.
This paper analyses the shifts in the system of governance of Kyiv in 2008–2014 as a crucial element of the resilience capacity of the region. The consequences of the economic crisis and the ongoing security crisis demand new approaches and solutions from the city’s leadership and community. For years Kyiv suffered from poor municipal leadership and unprecedented control by the central government, which undermined the resilience of its socio-economic system in the aftermath of the global economic crisis. However, new forms of community initiatives that bring together private and non-governmental actors are becoming widespread, and are becoming critical knowledge networks that are essential for successful long-term development. Changing institutional frameworks, and the firm commitment to decentralisation proclaimed by the country’s current leadership, open new avenues for harnessing the city’s potential. The challenge is in finding ways for constructive collaboration between formal and informal leaders of the city while building a new base for sustainable and competitive economic growth.
As a result of interaction of many factors, the conditions of academic institutions have changed significantly over the last decades. Globalization and internationalization, demographic and economic challenges, as well as growing international competition between universities causes these institutions to take up new functions, restructure and change their character. Top universities respond to the changing context by developing new strategic solutions aiming at sustaining and strengthening their high position in international rankings. Some of the strategic solutions are similar for most universities, but some are unique and specific. The aim of this article is to identify latest trends in strategic management of top universities and present selected case studies to illustrate the most interesting solutions.
The paper analyzes statistical relationships between the inflow of EU financial resources to Polish territorial units (voivodeships, NUTS3 and poviats) and the pace of their economic growth. Correlation analysis reveals that the less developed units which enjoyed relatively more massive inflows per capita grew more slowly than the better developed ones – the correlation coefficients are negative (for the voivodeships) or close to zero (for NUTS3 and poviats). This suggests that until now, the EU funds have led to a stronger demand effect than the supply effect in the Polish economy. It may therefore be claimed that in the next programming period 2014–2020, more funds received from the EU should be devoted to the support of economic development than to the improvement of living conditions.
The main aim of the paper is an attempt to assess whether academic cooperation is an important component of a region’s innovation potential. First, a preliminary operationalization of the most important components of innovation potential is presented based on a literature review. The components are then verified using factor analysis which makes it possible to identify the main dimensions of a region’s innovation potential. The results suggest that academic cooperation is a significant component of the potential, given that the indicators that illustrate it are part of the potential’s „academic” dimension (betweenness centrality) and of its „core” dimension nternationalization). However, the paper shows that cooperation is not linked with the “technological” dimension that, at the time of the study, played the central role in shaping European regions’ growth dynamic. The ”core” dimension, on the other hand, comprising e.g. internationalization of academic cooperation, proved to be significant in explaining the growth dynamics of three out of nine subtypes of regions, the “academic-technological” among others. It may mean that foreign academic cooperation is important for the development of the regions that are key for European innovation potential.
This paper is a comparative study of main social theories of urban development in the last fifty tears. The author presents various approaches and social theories from across the world. He divides the after-war period into three phases according to the profound social changes. the first one covers the years of ending the post-war reconstruction of economy, infrastructure and cities damaged by the war. the second phase includes "the golden years" between approximately 1955 and 1975, when the formation of different types of welfare state, but mainly the urban population growth, suburbanization and metropolization processes and improvement of living conditions and urbanities took place. the third phase, covering the years between 1975 and 2000, is marked by the first signs of the decline of the welfare state accompanied by deepening social inequalities increasing urban poverty, marginalization of some groups of the population, political radicalization and urban conflicts as well as by urban and regional polarization.
Referring to the Polish regionalization from the perspective of European integration and globalization, the paper proposes a model of regional analysis based on theoretical conceptions of Pierre Bourdieu and Anssi Paasi. Region as a social field of new generation, regional habitus constructed within it and an imago regionis as a new type of regional identity are the key concepts of the proposed model. Multi-stage institutionalization of region, which results in an idiosyncratic regional identity, is the main process analysed by means of the model. The identity functions on the one hand at the level of territorial marketing, on the other it interacts with mental and behavioural patterns constitutive of regional habitus, conditioning adaptive and innovative potential of regional communities. The proposed approach enables to see region in the perspective of global change on the one hand, while on the other, it draws attention to possibilities of local modification of the conditions, within which it is implemented. While it sustains the weight of socio-cultural factors in regional analyses, at the same time it makes it possible to reach beyond narrowly conceived perspective of cultural identity, dominant in sociologically minded studies of regions.
The tourism sector plays an important role in regional economies. Its growth could become a driver of socio-economic development of different areas in Poland. The increasing number of visiting tourists has a positive impact on the labour market, and it stimulates entrepreneurship in other regions’ service sectors. Even though some Polish regions have great potential, there persist some substantial barriers to development of tourism: poor state of technical infrastructure, especially transport, significant dispersion of the sector, lack of tourism products, and poor promotion. As no separate policy dedicated to tourism is provided at the European Union level, the development of this sector can be financed from cohesion policy funds. The paper focuses on the use of EU funds for the development of tourism in the Warmia-Mazury region. The results of the analysis show a positive – albeit limited – impact of implemented projects on tourist attractiveness and on competitiveness of tourism sector firms. The effectiveness of the projects is limited due to low interest in cooperation in creating tourism products and to over-investment effects in some projects.
The aim of the paper is to analyze the level of economic development and its dynamics in the cities and towns in the eastern region between 1995 and 2015. The objects of the study were 54 cities and towns of the region. The source of the data for the analysis was the Local Data Bank of the Central Statistical Office. Taxonomic analysis, no-pattern method was used for the study. Ten variables were analyzed during the studied period. They were divided into those referring to budgets of municipalities/communes, national economy entities, and the labor market. As a result of the analysis, it was discovered that 50 cities and towns showed signs of development in the period. It was observed that the diversification of the level of economic development of cities and towns of the eastern region in the spatial layout did not decrease. It was also stated that the accession of Poland to the European Union had an impact on the growth of dynamics indexes of changes for the towns and cities.
Career paths of modern politicians have increasingly become diversified and drifter away from the classical hierarchical career pattern. The article addresses new theoretical concepts and empirical studies, which have been developed since the beginning of the 21st century by the multilevel government school (MLG) in relation to the careers of regional politicians and new career paths in general. As being a regional politician has become a profession, the investigation of the MLG school focuses on the political careers of such politicians, and most of all reflects the transformation of modern states as a result of regionalization and development of supranational European institutions. As a central theoretical contribution of the MLG school, Bochert’s “Conceptual Approach to Political Careers in Multilevel Systems” is discussed as the most comprehensive and advanced model of addressing the impact of the institutional setting on Carter opportunities. The final part of the article presents an overview of MLG research, which has led to a recognition of new types of political careers.
The privatization of the Center of Contemporary Art (CCA) area in Torun allows us to observe relatively new processes in Polish urban reality. The case shows how private-public partnership and place marketing are constructed and how partners combine spheres of culture and commerce to realize the investment. Private investor, using the cultural arguments, tries to create a shopping mall in the recreation area located next to the historical center of the city. The aim of the paper is to analyze the dynamics of the process of privatization and strategies used to privatize the public space in an attractive district of Torun.
The author investigates the problem of convergence of Polish regions towards their stationary stable states in the Solow model. The article shows how it is possible to estimate the conditional and unconditional ?-convergence with the panel methods. The estimations using panels with fixed effects are performed, which allows to estimate the growth rates of labor productivity (technical progress) and to check the differences between regions with respect to the productivity.
The aim of this article is to gain a better understanding of the patterns of human capital mobility in transition economies. It exploits a unique dataset from a Polish social networking website to develop a typology of skilled migration. Determinants of human capital flows are further elaborated using an empirical model of student and graduate migration. It is found that spatial mobility of human capital in Poland is low, and the distance between the home region and potential destination plays the most significant role in migration decisions. Migrations of skilled individuals favour metropolitan areas, which experience a net gain of human capital, while all other regions are subject to brain drain.
Accessibility indicators can be defined to reflect both within-region transport infrastructure and infrastructure outside the region which affect the region (interregional infrastructure). The new geography models show that increase of accessibility may have no positive impact on poor regions development. The only regions on which it may have an effect are those which are rich or those situated on transport corridors. In countries like Poland transport infrastructure might be effective. However the main result of SASI model and IASON project is that socio-economic trends such as ageing of the population and increases of labour productivity have much stronger impact on cohesion indicators (GDP or employment) than regional transport accessibility.
The paper examines whether EU funds may encourage local and regional development in the Lubelskie voivodship. The authors compare the actual structure of support in 2007?2013 with the necessary conditions of a positive and sustainable result of financial assistance found in the literature. In addition, six case studies were carried out to explore the mechanisms of support at the local level. The analysis shows the dominance of infrastructure spending and support for rural areas. Low expenditure on economic and knowledge capital is accompanied by virtually no support for social capital and administration quality improvement. Funds at the local level are often used purely as social aid. The observed ways of spending the funds may lead to petrifaction of an unfavourable regional economic structure, and do not ensure growth of production factors productivity
The paper proposes a model in which centre-periphery relations defined in an abstract way (from the global level of world system to regional structures) could be analyzed in a perspective of a number of disciplines including: political science (e.g. the Rokkan theory of peripheries and centre-periphery cleavages), sociology (e.g. the Bourdieu’s theory of types of capital) and linguistics (discourse analysis including the code switching and politeness theories). It focuses on the nature of the discourse of the peripheral elites which, as it is argued, live in a two or more dimensional social space and communicate in at least two separate codes (in particular languages): peripheral and central. Using the above mentioned theoretical concepts, an attempt of theorization of the mechanism of mutual perception of centres and the peripheries is made.
The aim of this article is to analyze the odds to find a job and the assessment of the duration of long-term unemployment. The data base is the 2007–2011 records from the Local Labour Office in Sulęcin. The authors of the article make the hypothesis that the impact of the determinants on the odds and rate of finding a job by the long-term unemployed is the same as in the case of the all the unemployed. The authors present a thesis that the determinants of long-term unemployment in the period of study are: the place of residence, age, the level of education, gender, seniority and the year of leaving the register. To analyze the data they use such nonlinear regression models as: the logistic model and the Cox hazard model. The former enables them to compare the odds to leave unemployment and the latter – to assess the time spent on finding employment. The designated odds ratios and hazard ratios are used to study the differences between subgroups of individual characteristics of the long-term unemployed as compared with all the unemployed.
The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how the development of European peripheries can be strengthened by cooperative clusters, viewed as loose business organizations where cooperation of partners results in a synergy effect. The existence of clusters in peripheral areas may give efficient solutions to many problems, such as unemployment or the need of restructuring regional economy. Partnership of clusters may add up to their competitiveness thanks to the home demand. The present paper presents an example of the Lubelskie Region, the most neglected region in Poland. It is argued here that cooperation among local clusters provides a chance for an increase in the region’s social activity and for its economic growth.
Of all the arts, architecture is the one with the closest links to ideology – not only because in many cases it serves as an instrument of power, but also because any structure is invariably preceded by words. A poet writes poems which need no design beforehand; a painter may occasionally prepare sketches for his painting, but these drafts potentially contain the entire painting which is to be produced. Conversely, there are at least three stages to any building or structure. First, there comes an idea – expressed in words – which determines its function, form and meaning, then comes a hand drawing, which contemporarily is more and more frequently replaced by computer simulation, after that a scale model, and finally – a building.
The article describes a local conflict which arose when the decision on the establishment of the Brzeziny district (powiat) had been waived at the last moment. This resulted in strong protests of the inhabitants, who hoped that the district authorities would be located in Brzeziny. The conflict impaired the local community`s ability to exercise its political function and to execute public tasks. Two opposed groups emerged in the local community: representatives of the local authority and people connected with them on the one hand, and the protest committee, later the Teraz Brzeziny (Time for Brzeziny) association, on the other. The consequence of this local conflict, taken as a model, is mutual adaptation of both opposing sides. In Brzeziny, the adaptation took the form of a compromise negotiations between the government authorities and local community`s representatives, which brought a solution to the problem. As a result of the compromise, the Brzeziny district has been established, however not within the originally planned boundaries.
The article presents the results of the analysis of the impact of the National Development Plan (NDP) 2004–2006 and the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) 2007–2013 on divergence/convergence processes taking place in Poland as well as between its regions and the EU average, measured as GDP per capita in PPS. The analysis was made using simulation results received by applying 16 regional HERMIN models and data as well as forecasts concerning NDP and NSRF transfers prepared by the Ministry of Regional Development of the Republic of Poland. The application of HERMIN models allowed the authors to make forecasts regarding the following macroeconomic indicators: GDP per capita (in PPS) in relation to the EU average and to the national average by 2020. The results indicate that NDP and NSRF implementation can accelerate the convergence process between the Polish regions and the EU average and slow down the weak divergence process within the country.
Dynamic tourism development has resulted in equally dynamic growth of tourism industry, being the major source of income. Tourism development strategies are based on different concepts of economic growth which do not answer all questions. Among them is the issue of success factors: what makes certain localities enjoy fast tourism development while other similar places have problems? Against many beliefs on the significance of natural resources, more important are cultural assets and in particular development of tourist infrastructure and products. Having this in mind one should look for success factors in quality of human resources, elites and leadership.
The concept of the political cycle was originally formulated with regard to decisions taken at the central level, but it may be also applied to the local level. Most of the previous empirical studies have focused on expenditure (how its size and structure change depending on the electoral cycle). The applicability of the concept to local tax policy has also been studied, although more rarely. In Polish studies of local public finance, the concept of political cycle has so far been rarely used. In this article, the authors check whether the theoretical frame of the political cycle is suitable for interpreting decisions relating to tariffs on local public services. It is empirically tested on tariffs on water and sewage, rents in municipal housing, tickets for local public transport and parking charges. The second research question concerns factors influencing the likelihood of the political cycle in different services. In this respect, the article puts forward four specific hypotheses. The authors have to face a methodological problem: the distinction between the influence of the electoral cycle and of other factors, such as inflation, or the change in the financial situation of local governments, and economic growth rate. The applied quantitative methods refer to panel logistic regression and linear regression models in which the impact of the electoral year is controlled by other variables.
Strengthening economic cohesion of regional economies is usually considered as one of the major goals of regional policy. At the same time, metropolitan cities are recognized as main centres of economic growth, influencing the development perspectives of more peripheral areas. It is therefore important to know the range and the mechanism of spillover of socio-economic development from metropolises to their surroundings, as well as to identify the areas which are economically lagging as a result of missing functional links with metropolises. The authors apply the local spatial correlation measures (local Moran’s statistics – LISA) in the analysis of municipal revenues in order to delimit the diffusion and polarization of economic development in Poland.
Neoclassical economists usually think of “microfoundations” before they come to macroeconomics. We claim exactly the opposite: every microeconomic theory should be grounded in a credible macroeconomic model. Such a model may be the classical paradigm and Kaleckian economics, which are fundamentally different from the neoclassical paradigm. Thus, we will prove the following thesis: political economy is better than the neoclassical theory at describing and explaining contemporary regional development processes. State policy has a fundamental role to play in shaping regional development, while local authorities may perform an auxiliary function.
Education is a field which is not subject to unification in the European Union. Education systems in the EU countries differ, among others, in terms of: sources of funding, provision of basic education, participation in the education and training system, and functioning of higher education. The main aim of the present study is to compare education systems in EU Member States using statistical methods of linear ordering of objects. The study posits lower effectiveness of individual indicators that characterize education. It is focused on a synthetic evaluation of education in EU countries using Hellwig’s modelling method. This approach makes it possible to prepare a ranking and to determine the distance separating Poland from the best (model) education system.
The results of this study substantiate and compare the trends observed in the global labour market and the corresponding trends in the Ukrainian labour market in 2017–2022. With regard to the annual trend specification, this study has established the extent to which the Ukrainian labour market participants focus on the key areas of its development and has identified the problematic aspects that hinder the socio-economic recovery of the country. These findings have important implications for substantiating the course for the strategic development of the Ukrainian labour market, which should form the base for enhancing both life quality for the population and the socio-economic growth of the country.
The main aim of the article is to test Richard Butler’s model of tourist destination lifecycle in relation to Benidorm – one of the most important Spanish seaside resorts. Benidorm is an example of extreme changes in the landscape caused by a large number of skyscrapers. The analysis of Benidorm’s history from 14th to 16th century and its photographs allowed us to identify phases of this resort’s cycle. Supply and demanded features, infrastructure, the degree of landscape change and management priorities were also taken into consideration. Particular attention was paid to the reorientation stage. Using statistical data, the authors verified how effective the reorientation of Benidorm’s tourism economy was. Moreover, in order to show a wide background of the issues discussed, the main characteristics of development stages of mass tourism were presented (based on ten examples of second generation seaside resorts).
The aim of the study is to examine the impact of the amendment to the Municipal Self-Government Act (hereinafter: MSGA; Journal of Laws 2018, item 994) on the implementation of participatory budgeting (PB) in 2019 and 2020 in Polish voivodship cities. Using the desk research method, 36 PB regulations and over 3.4 thousand projects were selected for implementation in 10 categories: 1) sports (investment and other), 2) leisure and recreation (investment and other), 3) construction or modernisation of sidewalks, 4) construction or modernisation of streets, 5) pedestrian walkways, 6) parking lots, 7) lighting, 8) city bicycles (bicycle infrastructure), 9) modernisation of buildings, and 10) other (e.g. educational, cultural, training). Detailed studies were carried on the influence of legislative changes on: 1) financial mechanisms; 2) principles and organisation of the budgeting process; 3) generic structure of projects; 4) participatory budgeting model. In order to verify the results obtained, changes in the PB regulations not resulting from the MSGA provisions were additionally analysed. It was shown that the amendment to the Act had a significant impact on the implementation of PB in all the analysed cities. The changes mainly concerned the financial and formal-organisational aspects of participatory budgeting process. The most crucial ones include: increase in the size of the overall subsidies (in 15 cities), modification of the distribution of the financial means (9), introduction of letters of support at the stage of project submission (7) and appeal procedure (9). Among the “non-statutory” activities, the abolition of age limits in the remaining 7 cities should be mentioned. These activities brought positive effects on the increase in turnout (15), the number of projects selected for implementation (12) and their average value (13). On the other hand, the changes in MSGA did not affect the generic structure of the projects (in both years, in 10 cities the category “leisure and recreation” prevailed, and 1149 projects from this category were selected for implementation). The final unification of the PB implementation model in Polish voivodship cities has been completed. Finally, three modes of PB implementation according to the new rules were indicated: financial, procedural and combined.
The aim of the article is to present the process of changes which occurred from the 1970s until 2012 in the areas of urban agglomerations in Poland. In contemporary agglomerations in Poland, their socio-economic function is centralized while land use and building development become progressively decentralized, which results in dynamic growth of the central metropolitan area, and in simultaneous deurbanization of its zone of influence. The described problem is typical of the Warsaw Urban Agglomeration (Warszawski Zespół Miejski, WZM), where the population of the metropolitan zone increases while the importance of the surrounding towns, particularly in their central areas, decreases. The objective of this paper is to present these contemporary trends in the communes of the northern zone of WZM. The analysis involves three towns: Legionowo, Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki, and Zakroczym, and two communes – Jabłonna and Wieliszew. The results are compared with relevant changes occurring in the communes of the Piaseczno district. The examined processes are also confronted with the proposals and arrangements included in planning concepts prepared in different periods for the agglomeration. The escalating suburbanization, characterized by deurbanization visible in spatial planning, affects the effectiveness of newly created building developments and their rank of service centres, and also shows the failure of long-term planning, which is not supported by detailed analysis and research.
Endogenous growth theories presume knowledge plays the key role in economic growth (1). Yet, new economic geography along with empirical findings suggest the possibility of divergence occurring in development processes (2). Combining (1) and (2) indicates the importance of studying knowledge factors’ distribution. To obtain the fully fledged picture of a given economy one shall go beyond simply analyzing knowledge factors but include also their spatial location. The article touches upon this issue. It is devoted to Germany and examines three territorial and administrative levels: one referring to former country division (DDR & BRD), the second relating to NUTS 1 (16 Bundesländer) and third represented by 41 Regierungsbezirke (NUTS 2). Results are obtained by investigating 5 factors (e.g. expenditure on R&D, human resources in S&T, patent applications) and applying 4 measures (Gini, Rosenbluth, Ellison–Glaeser and Herfindahl–Hirschman Coefficients). This paper is meant to supplement earlier studies as well as a good starting point for further research devoted to country’s knowledge landscape.
A measure of economic development for regions is proposed in the form of a multicomponent index. This measure is composed of the following aspects: technology, infrastructure, human capital and social capital and defied by an array of indicators. Such a measure has significant advantages over the most commonly used indicator of GDP per capita. The statistical data based on which it is built are freely available and with a much shorter time lag than GDP at the regional level. This indicator makes it possible to depict economic factors behind long-run economic growth as well as to include less measurable factors such as social change, environmental degradation, etc. On the one hand, the proposed indicator comprises symptoms of the quality of life, and on the other hand, it includes factors which are essential for long-run economic growth and productivity. The authors show usefulness of such an indicator for policy formulation, which is rarely pointed out in the case of other indexes and is especially important at a time when long-run economic growth, and also development, in high-developed countries is endangered. The authors also discuss some general aspects of constructing indexes of economic development for regions, e.g., the often omitted problem of inclusion of cyclical indicators in the indexes of development. Empirical analysis of the proposed indicator is made for the NUTS-2 regions of Poland for the years 2009–2011.
