Indicators of agricultural and rural development in the east central and south-east European countries

Abstract

© 2020, University of Montenegro. All rights reserved. Rural development is largely determined by the available resources and competitiveness of agriculture. The results achieved in agriculture are a significant factor that affects the improvement of the life quality in rural areas and the efficiency of the rural economy. Hence the indicators of agriculture and rural development are common and inseparable. The main purpose of the paper is systemic analysis of indicators of agriculture and rural development in the East Central and South-East European countries. The heterogeneous structure of the analysed group of countries enables their further division into the European Union (EU) Member States and non-EU countries and consideration of differences in the results achieved in these two subgroups. The methods applied in the paper are descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, cluster analysis and correlation analysis. The results of the research enable evaluation of the relative position of the countries according to the analysed indicators, identification of the countries with relatively better performance, but also the direction and intensity of the link between selected indicators of agricultural and rural development in the analysed group of countries.