Changes in the spatial structure of the Polish industry under economic crisis conditions

Abstract

The global economic crisis which started in 2007 in the United States of America, at different times and to a different extent affected various sectors and national economies of the world. In Poland, its symptoms were noticeable later than in other countries. In the first phase of the crisis (2007- 2008), there was no direct effect, due to the fact that initially the turmoil on global financial markets had weaker effect on the national economy, and it was limited mainly to capital markets, affecting the sectors of agriculture, industry, and services to a lesser extent. However, as recession grew in force, the crisis gradually began to affect also the results of economic activity, including industry. In 2009, a significant decrease in the value of production sold, as compared to the previous year, was observed. The question is whether this had been reflected in changes of spatial industrial structure. The five-year period of the economic recession seems to be long enough to assess such changes. Therefore, the paper analyses the transformation of the spatial structure of Polish industry during crisis, based on the basic indicators of potential, such as employment and the value of production sold, as well as concentration coefficients. The year 2007 was adopted as the base year, treating it as a pre-crisis year. The conclusions of the detailed analysis indicated that the impact of crisis on the change of the spatial structure of the Polish industry is very limited and the observed trends of change did not differ substantially from the general industrial development trends in Poland, identified by previous studies. It should be noted, however, that the structure of industry is characterized by high “inertia” due to the complexity and size of the investment process. Therefore, in the following several years no deep and sudden transformation should be expected, even during economic recession.