Risks Associated with Evaluation of Regional Disparity: The Influence of Metropolitan Areas on Results in Visegrad Group Countries

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the influence of metropolitan areas on the development of regional disparity results in Visegrad Group countries. The methodological framework is based on the neoclassical growth model. In particular, the approaches of beta- and sigma convergence have been used to examine the development of regional disparity between 2000 and 2016. The analysis results suggest that the influence of metropolitan areas on the results of regional disparity is large in many fields of development like: GDP, income, unemployment, education and expenditures on research and development. In fact, inclusion, or exclusion, of metropolitan area is very often the decisive reason for considering the convergence, or divergence, process to be statistically significant. However, the metropolitan areas do not bias only the results about tendency. The analysis suggests they are much more important in terms of intensity of particular processes. The results of intensity differ by hundreds of percent between the samples with and without the metropolitan areas. On the other hand, the results have been usually biased only in terms of intensity and significance. In general, the effect of metropolitan areas in Visegrad Group countries is not strong enough to change the results from convergence to divergence, and vice-versa.