<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>The intention of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on how the factors of socio-economic disadvantage and absorption capacity influence the spatial distribution of Structural Fund (SF) payments among the Czech Republic’s micro-regions during the 2007–2013 programming period. The empirical results indicate that agglomeration economies, innovation and entrepreneurship are associated with higher SF absorption capacity and higher SF payments, challenging the tendency for socio-economically disadvantaged regions to converge. SF absorption capacity measured especially by the number of project applications submitted for SF financing and by the average SF budget per project application, is a crucial concept in order to understand the relationship between within-country regional disparities and SF interventions.</p></abstract>

The intention of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on how the factors of socio-economic disadvantage and absorption capacity influence the spatial distribution of Structural Fund (SF) payments among the Czech Republic’s micro-regions during the 2007–2013 programming period. The empirical results indicate that agglomeration economies, innovation and entrepreneurship are associated with higher SF absorption capacity and higher SF payments, challenging the tendency for socio-economically disadvantaged regions to converge. SF absorption capacity measured especially by the number of project applications submitted for SF financing and by the average SF budget per project application, is a crucial concept in order to understand the relationship between within-country regional disparities and SF interventions.

Regional disparities, absorption capacity and Structural Fund payments: A case study of the Czech Republic

Department of Regional Development, Public Sector Administration and Law, Faculty of Management and Economics

Department of Public Policy and Public Administration, Faculty of Social Sciences

University of St. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava

Quaestiones Geographicae

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The intention of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on how the factors of socio-economic disadvantage and absorption capacity influence the spatial...

Regional disparities, absorption capacity and Structural Fund payments: A case study of the Czech Republic

Published Online: Dec 21, 2017

Page range: 81 - 92

Received: Dec 08, 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/quageo-2017-0037

Keywords
regional disparities, convergence, absorption capacity, Structural Funds, Czech Republic

© 2017 Jiří Novosák et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Regional disparities, absorption capacity and Structural Fund payments: A case study of the Czech Republic

Published Online: Dec 21, 2017

Page range: 81 - 92

Received: Dec 08, 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/quageo-2017-0037

Keywordsregional disparities, convergence, absorption capacity, Structural Funds, Czech Republic

© 2017 Jiří Novosák et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
regional disparities, convergence, absorption capacity, Structural Funds, Czech Republic