Realna konwergencja między regionami Unii Europejskiej w latach 1995–2008

The article presents the results of statistical calculations of σ and β real convergence among the EU regions in 1995-2008 period. The calculation was conducted on the basis of GDP per capita data for 189 NUTS2 regions of the EU area, which were obtained from the OECD and Eurostat data bases. The main aim of the paper was to verify the research hypothesis of the convergence in level of product per inhabitant among the EU regions and among the selected groups of regions. The σ-convergence analysis used the indicators of spatial differences of the GDP per capita, such as: maximum, minimum, maximum and minimum ratio, coefficients of variations based on interquartile range (VQ) and standard deviation (VS). The calculated values of coefficients of variations provide evidence for spatial heterogeneity of the cross-regional GDP per capita and their changes in analyzed period – for σ-convergence or σ-divergence. The β-convergence analysis was about the estimation of parameters of the Barro-type convergence equation and its modification of this equation by introduction of time variable. Moreover, to include the spatial heterogeneity of analyzed variables the equations extended by employing the fixed effects procedure. The parameters of convergence equations was calculated according to two methods, such as: OLS and GMM.