Regional Gross Domestic Product (RGDP) Disparities in Interwar and Restored Independent Lithuania: A Long-Term Cross-Time Comparison

We provide a pioneering estimation of the regional Gross Domestic Product (rGDP) of the interwar Republic of Lithuania in 1923. This is the only year when a census of the interwar population was conducted, providing data necessary for the application of the Geary-Stark method of indirect estimation of regional output. We also measure productivity disparities across the regions in 1923 and 2001–2020 by Coefficient of Variation (CV), Mean Logarithmic Deviation (MLD), Gini and Theil indexes, to find out how much they have changed during the last hundred years. The main findings are that areas enclosed within the limits of contemporary counties (NUTS3 regions) ranked in this order in 1923 (by rGDP per capita, from richest to poorest): (1) Klaipėda; (2) Šiauliai; (3) Kaunas; (4) Panevėžys; (5) Marijampolė; (6) Telšiai; (7) Alytus; (8) Tauragė; (9) Utena. Overall levels of economic disparity in contemporary Lithuania are significantly higher than in Lithuania within its 1923 borders. However, in the contemporary NUTS2 Central and Western region, which corresponds territorially rather closely to that of the Republic of Lithuania in 1923–1938, they have remained at the same level as in 1923. In this area, Kaunas has taken first place from Klaipėda (but only since 2017), while Šiauliai, Marijampolė and Tauragė have relatively declined.