A Comparison of the Development of Selected Macroeconomic Indicators of the Regions of the V4 Countries.

Purpose: The purpose of the article is to compare a degree of beta-convergence between V4 countries and EU28 at national and NUTS 2 level. Methodology/Approach: We will make this comparison separately for each indicator (gross domestic product at current market prices, unemployment rate and disposable income of households.). To evaluate beta-convergence differences at national and regional level, we will compare the data for the V4 countries and for Germany and Austria. To show convergence, we approximated the GDP growth trend in individual countries, using a trend line for three different time periods. Findings: Our results point to persistent disparities between regions. They have confirmed that the cohesion policy in the regions of the V4 countries should promote innovations and investments into less developed and predominantly agricultural regions, complete the necessary backbone infrastructure and develop a high-quality regional education. At regional level, the implementation of high value-added programs may be hampered by institutional factors and a lack of capacity to make the necessary infrastructure or human capital investments. Our analysis showed that differences in regional performance are also accompanied by significant differences in investigated indicators. Research Limitation/Implication: Limitations of the paper are at first missing data for Poland to the year 2013. Second limit of the article are data from regions, because data are related to the palce of residence of its branch. Originality/Value of paper: Paper is full original, also a data analysis does not copy any other articles neither article in a journal nor paper on conference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]