The Global Economic Crisis and Regional Divides in the European Union: Spatial Patterns of Unemployment in Estonia and Poland

Abstract

A team of European geographers examines regional disparities in unemployment rates in Estonia and Poland extending from 1989 to the onset of the global financial crisis in late 2008. A particular focus of the research is on the extent to which east-west disparities in unemployment existed within each country (and within Eastern and Central European countries more broadly) both before and after the onset of the crisis. The results of the two case studies provide a basis for questioning the validity of certain imagined economic geographies of the region based on a core-periphery logic and point to the importance of considering context-specific understandings as well as historical trajectories and underlying differentials that pre-date the years of economic transition and the current financial crisis. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: E240, J600, P250. 4 tables, 5 figures, 96 references.