Taksonomiczna analiza zróżnicowania poziomu rozwoju gospodarczego województw

The level of economic development is one of the most important issues related to the functioning of regions. The aim of the study discussed in the paper is to create a ranking of Polish voivodeships in terms of their level of economic development, using various taxonomic measures. The study covers the period of 2009–2020 and uses data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland. The applied taxonomic methods are based on measuring distances in the Euclidean, urban and hyperbolic spaces, as well as on an indicator taking into account the weights for which the sum of Pearson’s correlation coefficients between normalised stimulants and this indicator is the largest. To determine the values of the indicators, the following macroeconomic variables were used: GDP per capita, gross value of fixed assets per capita, investment outlays per capita, average monthly remuneration and registered unemployment rate in Polish voivodships. The taxonomic analysis showed differences among voivodships in terms of their level of economic development, and at the same time indicated the overall progress across voivodships in this respect. Mazowieckie Voivodship ranks by far the highest of all voivodships in terms of economic development, and is followed by Dolnośląskie, Wielkopolskie and Śląskie. The least developed are Podkarpackie, Lubelskie, Świętokrzyskie and Warmińsko-Mazurskie voivodeships. The results of the study indicate the need for action to reduce regional differences in economic development.