Regional patterns in technological progress of Poland: the role of EU structural funds

To the best of our knowledge, this paper is one of the first studies to analyze the evolution and determinants of regional patterns in the technological progress of one of the new EU members in transition-Poland. The results of the first part of the study prove that, after EU accession, the central region was the only part of Poland that not only reported a rapid rise in labor productivity but also managed to constantly increase its capital productivity. In the second part of the empirical analysis, we conduct a formal econometric analysis aimed at testing whether these differences in regional patterns in the technological progress of Poland could be caused by the inflow of EU structural funds.