engleski

Characteristics of Regional Development in the Republic of Croatia and Modelling a Database Aimed at its Monitoring and Preparing Adequate Measures of Economic and Social Policies

The Republic of Croatia is making advances towards full EU membership. This large community of countries and peoples is characterized by rich diversity. One of the most sensitive and complex issues for its members is uneven economic development. Various indicators reveal that Croatia is currently attaining macroeconomic performance of lesser-developed members of the European Union, which means that it fulfils the basic prerequisites for full membership. However, in comparison to the developed EU countries, there are significant disparities in the level of economic development. In addition, Croatia is burdened with a rather uneven economic development of its regions, which is a result of a number of factors. Although these differences cannot be completely eliminated, extra effort should be made to alleviate them in the forthcoming years. If the current negative trends are to be reversed, Croatian counties need to formulate adequate development strategies that would take into account all their regional specific qualities. This paper will try to identify the basic features of regional development in Croatia on the basis of available indicators, and to formulate a possible framework for economic and social policies that could be used to alleviate current inequalities. A special problem in the analysis of regional development appears to be the insufficiency of data. Another goal of this research is therefore to emphasize how important it would be to construct a database model which would enable us to systematically monitor regional development, and which would be the information basis for proposing appropriate measures of economic and social policies.

regional development ; economic and social policies ; development strategies ; development indicators ; database model

nije evidentirano