Convergence Analysis of the Regional Development Differences

There have been numerous discussions on economic convergence between regions during the last decades, especially because the development gap between different areas has been widening. Although different measures of the national and regional economic policies highlight the importance of the catching-up process, the results are sometimes quite different. This paper aims to study the level of regional convergence through analyzing chosen socio-economic variables in the Republic of Croatia. It is hard to conduct more complex analysis because of the lack of data but it was possible to analyze Gamma-convergence and (in some examples) Beta-convergence of GDP per capita, labor productivity and administrative unemployment rate which are the most used variables in the growth theory literature. Other socioeconomic variables of Croatia counties are described in descriptive part of the research analysis. Trends among regions are assessed throughout clusters of regions: all regions, developed regions and developing regions. A regional convergence conceptual framework includes 21 Croatian counties in a given time period, depending on data availability. The tendency toward convergence and/or divergence is analyzed in the context of public policy efficiency, which is the main purpose of the research. According to the results the authors give the public policy recommendations which can be used in the decision making process regarding the regional development disparities' mitigations.