Nowadays, regional inequalities are a serious challenge in the European Union, and although numerous strategies and measures have been developed to address this problem, the inequalities still exist. Several attempts have been made in the literature to measure convergence and the reduction of regional inequalities. In my study, I examine how the convergence process is evolving in the countries of the Carpathian Basin in terms of the specific gross value added measured at the NUTS3, county level, and what differences can be observed in the speed and trend of convergence. To support my findings, I use spatially extended convergence models and a spatial center of gravity method for the period 2005–2022. The results show that the speed of convergence is significantly slower when spatial interactions are considered, as indicated by the longer half-life and changing model parameters. At the same time, it can be concluded that both sigma and beta convergence can be observed in the region in terms of gross value added during the study period.
Keywords: gross value added, convergence, Carpathian basin, spatial autocorrelation
