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The twenty-first century is characterised by major shifts in the global economic paradigms. Europe constantly diminishes its importance in the world slowly drifting towards the secondary roles in determining the progress of human civilisation. The European Union as the main integrational structure on the continent is set to offer Europe a global perspective and consolidate the member countries’ common influence in international relations. Several enlargement waves were undertaken comprising countries of different economic development level. The main mechanism of the European Union in enhancing the economic cohesion among the member states is the Regional policy. The largest portion of financing is allocated towards enhancing the economic potential of least developed EU regions. Considering this fact, the present research is set to analyse the inter-regional development discrepancies in the Eastern European countries i. e. Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria in the context of raising global competition and to identify the key economic growth determinants of the nations. The results underline that there is a strong necessity to empower the prerogatives of the EU to increase its ability to decide the issues related to discrepancies reduction, infrastructure investments and improvement of the regional business opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of "regionalization" is a "top down" process, while "regionalism" has more of a "bottom up" sense. Regionalism is determined by history, culture, collective mentality. Regionalization requires a political decision at the level of the state, of the Parliament. Relevant inter-regional disparities are found (between counties which are parts of a region). There are opinions that favor a greater number of regions, with a greater homogeneity. One can find a significant dispersion of indicators that assess the level of development within the Development Regions. After in 2007 the EU approved the POR 2007-2013 Regional Operational Program, the practical problem of establishing national growth poles, in order to finance the development projects with priority, was raised [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In recent years, economic geographers have seized on the concepts of 'path dependence' and 'lock-in' as key ingredients in constructing an evolutionary approach to their subject. However, they have tended to invoke these notions without proper examination of the ongoing discussion and debate devoted to them within evolutionary economics and elsewhere. Our aim in this paper, therefore, is, first, to highlight some of the unresolved issues that surround these concepts, and, second, to explore their usefulness for understanding the evolution of the economic landscape and the process of regional development. We argue that in many important aspects, path dependence and 'lock-in' are place-dependent processes, and as such require geographical explanation. However, the precise meaning of regional 'lock-in', we contend, is unclear, and little is known about why it is that some regional economies become locked into development paths that lose dynamism, whilst other regional economies seem able to avoid this danger and in effect are able to 'reinvent' themselves through successive new paths or phases of development. The issue of regional path creation is thus equally important, but has been rarely discussed. We conclude that whilst path dependence is an important feature of the economic landscape, the concept requires further elaboration if it is to function as a core notion in an evolutionary economic geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes empirical findings and results from the author's most recent research publication in Chinese: China's Unbalanced Economic Growth. It studies China's economic growth with a special emphasis on its regional disparities. It provides an analysis of China's overall economic landscape as well as an empirical study of China's unbalanced regional development. Based on its quantitative findings and results, the author predicts the emergence of ten Chinese metropolitan economies in the early twenty-first century and recommends a regional development strategy as well as implementation policies for China's future development. The major empirical findings, results and conclusions of this research are outlined in three sections: the first describes China's economic future—the emergence of ten regional metropolitan economies, the second reports the empirical findings of China's national and regional economic disparities and discusses policy implications, and the third investigates China's future economic growth and discusses its growth limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 7 years Australia has been undergoing substantial economic reform under a collaborative Federal and State government program known as national competition policy. These reforms have increased the nation's productivity and international competitiveness, and are generally held responsible for Australia's increased growth rate in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita over the past decade. However, the reforms have been carried out against a background of increased interregional disparities, to which the reform program may have partly contributed. In this study we examine a number of Australian studies that have used computable general equilibrium modeling to uncover the regional economic consequences of national competition policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of geographic information system (GIS) techniques for rigorous analysis of regional inequality in China remains limited. In this article, the authors utilize recent data and GIS and spatial statistical techniques to analyze changing patterns of regional inequality in China from 1978 to 2000. It also identifies the changing clusters of regional development in China. They illustrate that regional inequality in China is sensitive to development trajectories of the provinces, and that conventional measures of regional inequality mask geographical clustering.