Spatial Effects in Regional Inequality Analysis of Own Income Potential Among Polish Communes

Abstract

The research aimed to assess spatial inequality of own income potential among Polish communes in 2010–2020. The analysis included the impact of spatial effects on the overall inequality level of own income potential—the most stable part of communes’ own income—and its changes between 2010 and 2020. The authors used their modification of (Rey and Smith, Lett Spat Resour Sci 6:55–70, 2013) spatial inequality measure proposed at the SKAD 2020 conference (Wołoszyn and Głowicka-Wołoszyn 2020). Both the original and modified measures can identify a spatial component of the Gini index of inequality that results from neighborhood interactions following the spatial decomposition of the index. The advantage of the modified measure over the original one lies in that it allows for the comparison of regions with different numbers of sub-regions, e.g. provinces with different numbers of communes. The research drew on data from the Local Data Bank of the Central Statistical Office in Warsaw. Considerable spatial effects were found to affect own income potential inequality in every province. Moreover, the evolution of these effects had a convergent character.