Regional Spatial Approach to Differences in Rural Economic Development: Insights from Serbia

Abstract

Rural regions with a larger share of the primary sector in the overall economy are limited in their ability to achieve a sufficient level of competitiveness. In countries such as Serbia, where rural areas play an important role, addressing the problems affecting these areas is important for overall development. The purpose of this study is to determine the socioeconomic performance of the rural regions of Serbia and the EU in order to indicate the position of Serbia’s rural areas in the process of European integration. NUTS 3 (NUTS 2 for Germany) was used for analysis, and from this an Index of Socioeconomic Performance was created. This Index was created using Factor Analysis. The results point to Serbia lagging behind other EU regions in terms of development, with most of Serbia’s rural regions receiving the lowest ratings. These results are cause for alarm and indicate a need to create strategies that will direct resources towards key issues in these areas, whose potential would be adequately used through the implementation of rural policy measures, with the aim of overall socioeconomic development.

Rural tourism as a driver of the economic and rural development in the Republic of Serbia

“…In Serbia, where rural areas have a large share in the total territory of the country, it is vital to address this problem. In developed countries, tourism and services provide a significant contribution to development of rural areas (Jurjević et al, 2021). The EU, which is also characterized by a large number of rural areas and a relatively high percentage of rural population, has been developing different strategies and programmes over the last decades in order to step up the rural development and improve tourism industry.…”

Spatial and Temporal Evolutionary Characteristics and Its Influencing Factors of Economic Spatial Polarization in the Yangtze River Delta Region

“…In the process of regional economic growth, due to the scarcity of resources, it is only possible to give priority to development in areas with better innate endowments and attract resources from surrounding areas to continuously accumulate to them to generate scale effects, and then promote other regions through efficient resource allocation. Therefore, unbalanced development among regions is inevitable [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. In the early stage of the transformation of the economic system, concentrating resources to develop one region will help to achieve the goal of economic growth, form a “polarized” development pole, leading to the continuous widening of the gap, resulting in a “siphon” effect, which affects the development of surrounding areas, especially backward regions.…”

Rural Space Modeling—Contemporary Challenges

“…The presented articles also evaluate the impact of EU funds on regional changes in agricultural development and management of green areas. Jurjević et al [23], using the example of Serbia, discussed a regional spatial approach to differences in rural economic development. Rudnicki et al [24] were attempted to synthesise the diversity of CAP financial support using spatial typology methods.…”