Wellbeing and environmental performance of the Visegrad countries at the beginning of the 21st century

Csaba Lakócai

Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, 2025, vol. 33, issue 2, 425-440

Abstract: Literature finds convergence between Western and Eastern Europe in terms of formal macro-economic and social indicators since the end of the last century. Yet, the East-West difference in Europe is still significant. In parallel with the European convergence process, the social preferences have been changing since the turn of the millennium, moving beyond the 20th century paradigm of economic growth. The changing concept of development is reflected in the increasing concerns about the social and environmental conditions, which have led to the multiplication of alternative development indicator sets. In accordance with this paradigm shift, the paper aims to analyse the wellbeing and environmental performance of four Central and Eastern European countries, collectively referred to as the Visegrad countries, namely the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, from the second half of the 2000s until the end of the 2010s. It also analyses the pre-pandemic social conditions at the NUTS2 regional level. The findings indicate that, in order to enhance the quality of life, the Visegrad countries should prioritize the social and environmental dimensions of development, rather than solely focusing on economic growth.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/25739638.2025.2507607 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cdebxx:v:33:y:2025:i:2:p:425-440

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cdeb20

DOI: 10.1080/25739638.2025.2507607

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe is currently edited by Andrew Kilmister

More articles in Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().