An analysis of regional development and labour market disparities in Poland

Abstract

The current article presents both theoretical arguments and a data analysis supporting the interpretation of Polish regional disparities on the basis of Keynesian theory and allowing to strongly connect differences in income per capita with labour market. The analysis underlines, moreover, that public interventions supporting income per capita and improving work market conditions in under-developed regions can be not only an effective instrument for the reduction of poverty and unemployment in those areas, but could foster private entrepreneurs’ profits and development as well. On the basis of the carried out analysis, it can be stated that regional disparities in Poland are well explained on the basis of Keynesian approach, and in particular by the growth model elaborated by the Polish economist Michał Kalecki in 1968 due to its integration with other theoretical considerations of authors of the same school of thought, which underlines the very relevant role of aggregate demand in the determination of the long run evolution of the main macroeconomic variables in Poland. A very relevant role in the improvement of living conditions in the country can be thus expected to be exerted by the very factors which according to Keynesian theory influence the increase of GDP growth rate, work productivity, capital accumulation, development and implementation of innovation, employment and wages rises. Instead of proposals of minimal wage reduction or regional differentiation, like those which can be found in works based on theoretical approaches based on mainstream authors’ elaborations, the presented data analysis and their interpretation thus support rather the realization of public investments and income support interventions in the less developed regions. The presented results seem, moreover, to point out that this very second type of interventions will be relatively more effective in the Polish case.