The cohesion policy of the European Union represents a significant part of its budget and delivers interventions across all regions of the EU. There is little consensus on its efficiency, and its links to fostering convergence on the regional level are uncertain. Nevertheless, regions were shown...

The aim of the European Union's cohesion policy is to reduce development inequalities between the regions of the Member States and to increase economic, social, and territorial cohesion. Expenditures on it account for one‑third of the European Union (EU) budget. Therefore, the appropriate and...

Special Economic Zones (SEZs) were established to attract entrepreneurs to invest in Polish regions in order to increase their social and economic development. One of the most important incentives offered in SEZs is state aid in the form of an income tax exemption. The objective of this paper is...

According to the Europe 2020 strategy (European Commission, 2010), the development of EU countries should be based on three interrelated priorities: smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Smart growth should be based on the increasing role of knowledge and innovation as the driving forces of...

Among Polish cities facing socio-economic difficulties are the former regional capitals which lost their administrative status due to the 1998 reform, reducing the number of regions from 49 to 16. Making use of this quasiexperimental setting, we assess the impact of the loss of administrative...

The areas located outside metropolitan areas and also outside areas activated through other big cities are called peripheries. There are big differences between the levels of development of metropolitan and peripheral areas in Poland. There are also great differences in opportunities to...

The aim of this chapter is to provide empirically supported evidence regarding regional development and inequalities in the European Union by focusing specifically on the Central and Eastern European countries. The process of European integration has impacted on the growth potential of all...

In the paper we calculate the Okun's coefficient in the regions of Poland. We compare the coefficients calculated for each region separately with the estimations from seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) models. We argue that the second method gives a better estimate, because shocks in output...