The article provides a systematic overview of the conceptual foundations for developing economic growth poles within the framework of the European Union’s regional policy. It reveals the essence of the economic growth pole category, which is based on the theoretical origins of the concept (growth poles, agglomeration effects, new economic geography) and its contemporary institutional interpretations in EU practice (growth poles and growth corridors; functional urban areas; integrated territorial instruments). A system of criteria for identifying economic growth poles is proposed in the context of Cohesion Policy and the place-based approach, including economic, locational, infrastructural, functional, urban, institutional, spatial connectivity, and temporal criteria. Through a cross-cutting analytical and theoretical perspective, the article identifies and evaluates the key development patterns of economic growth poles with regard to the quality of economic development, capitalization of intangible factors, dynamism, and controllability. It demonstrates that growth policy should be assessed not only through quantitative indicators (investment, employment, income), but also through sustainability, inclusiveness, adaptability, quality of the spatial environment, and the capacity to capitalize on intangible and unique resources such as knowledge, creative industries, institutions, and cultural capital. The authors outline the key challenges related to dynamising development and argue that these challenges reinforce the need for effective governance: while efficient markets are critical for growth, their “failures” require smart regulatory support that establishes rules and conditions for balanced development without substituting market mechanisms. The article systematizes new approaches to EU regional policy and identifies its core principles, financial instruments, investment priorities, innovations of the 2021–2027 programming period, and differences compared to previous periods. The contemporary principles and innovations of EU Cohesion Policy set the framework for supporting economic growth poles. Focusing on cities as growth poles, particularly small and medium-sized cities, creates preconditions for enhancing economic resilience, competitiveness, and innovative capacity of regions, while simultaneously reducing territorial disparities. The effectiveness of this model directly depends on the ability of institutional policy to transform multiplicative and spillover growth effects from uncontrolled by-products of resource concentration into a purposefully regulated process of spatial diffusion of development.
economic growth poles; Cohesion Policy; multiplicative effect; polycentric development; agglomeration effects; spillover effects; functional urban areas (FUA); large, medium and small cities, cluster
The aim of the article is to identify cause-and-effect relationships and assess the impact of spatial factors on the productive capacity of the regional economy. The nature of the productive capacity of the regional economy is theoretically considered, and the characteristics of spatial factors and their possible impact on the productive capacity of the regional economy are outlined. The productive capacity of the regional economy is largely determined by concentration factors; agglomeration effects, resource provision, location conditions, level of infrastructure development, management, technologies, and human capital. At the same time, the article also identifies the factors that can significantly reduce or even limit the productive capacity of the economy – administrative fragmentation, corruption, resource limitations or loss of capacity (or fertility for agricultural lands), and "breakage of economic space". An empirical analysis and assessment of the dependence between multifactor productivity and spatial factors is conducted. Correlation-regression analysis was used as a basis, which is aimed at identifying dependencies between multifactor productivity and spatial factors. The article finds that an indicative investment density has the strongest influence on factor productivity. The influence of population density indicators and the level of population urbanization is revealed. Quantitative dependencies are established between factor productivity and indicators of real estate value in cities-regional centers of Ukraine, business density, and employment in the regions. A very weak influence of the level of education and the level of infrastructure development on factor productivity is emphasized. Generalization of the analysis results made it possible to trace the trend towards improving the values of factor productivity during 2013–2021. Among the studied regions, Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv, Odesa, and Poltava regions stand out, which, on the one hand, demonstrates a high level of concentration of human capital, investments, enterprises, and the labor market, and on the other hand, indicates a tendency towards spatial heterogeneity in the concentration and structure of economic assets and significant differences in the investment attractiveness of territories at the interregional and intraregional levels.
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