DOES THE CATCH-UP EFFECT WORK? COMPARISON OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LIVING STANDARDS VISEGRAD FOUR COUNTRIES AND THE EU15 IN 2004-2020

The aim of the work is based on selected socio-economic indicators to compare the living standards of the old EU15 member states and post-communist V4 countries and at the same time verify the hypothesis that the V4 countries have caught up in the EU15 living standards since joining the EU. The theoretical part uses the method of literary research, which describes the historical development of both compared groups (V4 and EU15). Furthermore, the literature search is used to describe the theory of convergence and divergence, which specifically focuses on the characteristics and description of previous research on the effect of catching up. The conclusion of the theoretical part deals with the definitions of selected socio-economic indicators (GDP (PPP) per capita, inflation rate, unemployment rate, labor productivity, average annual net wage, human development index, life expectancy, economic freedom index, availability of owner-occupied housing). The practical part uses the method of comparison of selected indicators of living standards of the V4 and EU15 countries in the years 2004 to 2020. The added value of this work is the diversity of researched indicators. The comparison was made not only on economic indicators, but also on socio-economic indicators. It is this broad view that can better describe the development of living standards than simply examining purely economic indicators. Another added value of this work is a relatively long monitoring period (17 years), from which at least the trends of the development of the convergence process can already be observed with a certain probability. The hypothesis was verified on the basis of a comparison of available data, as the V4 countries have been catching up with the EU15 in terms of living since joining the EU.