Regional disparities in Hungary

Abstract: In the past decades, exacerbating regional disparities in the European Union as well as the newly joined Eastern European states have led to a growing interest in examining the spatial embeddedness of development. Hungary, a small and very monocentric country, has experienced rapid growth in the region of its capital city and its surrounding, whereas formerly lagging regions continued to fall behind. This thesis examines growing regional disparities in Hungary in order to provide a more comprehensive overview of the phenomenon and synthesise a growing body of both Hungarian and international literature based on their relevance for Hungary. As regional disparities rarely form an explicit research subject, the first aim of this thesis was to establish a suitable method for a comprehensive national level analysis. Within a mixed methodological framework, three theoretical perspectives on regional development were selected to analyse and reveal structural disparities, which were set in contrast with GDP levels of regions. On the one hand, the method proved to be useful to establish a refined rank order of the regions based on their approximated level and speed of development. On the other hand, the three different perspectives revealed structural strength and weaknesses underlying general development level of regions. The results did confirm the multiple advantages of the most developed regions, as well as the complex disadvantage of the most backward regions. Based on this experience a further increase in disparity levels can be expected in Hungary. Regions between the two extremes showed more heterogeneous outcomes across the perspectives, revealing very different development path and structural problems behind the performance level of these regions. Taken together, these findings support the heightening need of decentralization in Hungary, in order to tackle growing regional disparities and establish policy responses at a regional level.