Visual evaluation of changes in regional growth and disparities: usage of a pareto chart

Abstract

This paper shows how to evaluate a development of regional disparities with the Pareto chart. Explanation of chart principles is followed by its application to the regions of Visegrad Group countries. To present the usability of Pareto chart, we applied it on three different situations – involving both convergence and divergence. In addition, to confirm the estimates resulted from charts, we used the σ- convergence approach as a benchmark. Our results found that the chart has very good predicative ability, since virtually all conclusions of its application have been confirmed by σ-convergence analysis. The benefit of Pareto chart is involvement of extra information about changes in some sample sections, growth and order. Based on this information one can find more comprehensive conclusions about changes in disparities over time. Besides, the Pareto chart has a very easy interpretation which calls for no special knowledge in methods for disparity measurement. This is a great advantage for other fields’ researchers, political-bureaucratic apparatus and both expert and inexpert public. That is why we believe the Pareto chart is a very interesting tool to evaluate development of regional disparities, which can be used solely or in combination (complementary) with other approaches of disparity measurement.