Regional Inequalities in Ukraine: Causes, Consequences, Policy Implications

Regional development becomes an important issue in both developed and developing societies as regional inequality evolves with time. Few analyses have been done on regional inequalities of the former Soviet countries such as Ukraine. This lack of research can be explained by the socialist regional policy of equality that was dominant during the Soviet era. During transition to the market economy inequality has increased entailing negative processes in the society. A broad goal of this study is to improve understanding of regional development processes in countries that are in transition from centrally planned to market economy such as Ukraine. The objectives that lead to this goal are narrowed to the following: to identify inequality in regional development of Ukraine in a dynamic time framework, to model relationships between the level of economic development and factors that stimulated development, and to analyze mechanisms of regional policy that influence regional development. The results of this study should be useful to those who conduct a research on inequality and regional development policy, or anyone who is interested in the development path of the post-Soviet countries.