Selected big cities of Poland as regional poles of growth

Arkadiusz Mroczek

Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny w Krakowie
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3736-437X

Abstract

The concept of growth poles is well established in regional economics. It can be considered in different scales, and big cities are one of them. In Poland, these cities are developing relatively fast. One of the questions that appear in this context is, if this growth can be connected with the growth of their regions, i.e. if they can be regarded as regional growth poles. To address it, the aim of the paper is to test if some selected big metropolitan areas of Poland work as poles of growth for their regions. This is performed using the Granger-causality test, which is one of the methods used to explore, at least in its specific sense, the causal relations between variables. The study shows, that Poznań, Rzeszów and Wrocław (out of fifteen big Polish cities) can be considered the growth poles for their regions. The results are useful to grasp the contemporary understanding of the concept, as well as the specific conditions of Polish regional growth.

Keywords:

growth poles, Perroux, metropolises, metropolitan growth poles, Granger-causality test