Regional inequalities in the Visegrad Group countries, Serbia and Croatia

Abstract

The paper discusses the evaluation of regional inequalities in the V4 countries, Serbia and Croatia. The gross birth rate, the unemployment rate, the average monthly gross earnings, the gross domestic product per capita in purchasing power parity and dwellings completed per 1000 inhabitants were selected as a set of evaluation indicators and, to determine the level of regional inequalities the Gini Coefficient and the Coefficient of Variation in two variants were used - in all the counties as well as after excluding the capital cities. The integrated indicator of socio-economic status based on the above-specified indicators revealed the prevailing dichotomy of the prosperous West vs. the problematic East in the majority of the countries, the most significantly in Slovakia. This country together with Hungary recorded (mainly thanks to the significant effect of the capital city) the most significant inequalities while the less significant ones were in the Czech Republic, Serbia and Croatia. The strong effect caused by the capital city was confirmed almost in all the countries except for Poland. The level of the dependence between the socio-economic status of the countries and the level of their inequalities was confirmed only partially.