Dr. Zoltan Andras Daniel (p), Dr. Dorottya Edina Kozma (p), Viktória Monda

The European Green Deal’s promise of a "Just Transition" suggests that the path to climate neutrality must not exacerbate social inequalities. However, empirical evidence from the "turbulent times" of the recent energy crisis suggests a disconnect between capital allocation and social needs. While the Green Dedicated Investment (GDI) indicator successfully measures the economic volume of sustainable capital flows, it remains an open question whether these funds reach the most vulnerable regions. This paper investigates the spatial distribution of GDI in the Visegrád Four (V4) countries (2019–2024) to determine whether green investments alleviate or deepen regional disparities.
The research contrasts regional GDI intensities (NUTS2 level) with indicators of social vulnerability, specifically energy poverty rates, long-term unemployment, and housing quality. Our findings reveal a "Green Investment Paradox": the highest GDI values are often found in industrialized hubs concentrating on low-carbon technologies (e.g., electromobility, battery manufacturing), while peripheral regions suffering from high energy poverty receive minimal private green capital. In these vulnerable areas, the lack of market-based financing for building renovation creates a "lock-in" effect, trapping residents in carbon-intensive, high-cost living conditions. The study argues that without a "socially weighted" approach to GDI, the current financing model risks creating a "green two-speed Europe," where the benefits of the transition are privatized in industrial centers, while the costs fall disproportionately on the periphery.

Dr. Alexander Kaiser (p)

This paper examines whether commercial ESG ratings systematically penalize regional financial institutions in the European Union, and whether any such “penalization” reflects genuine sustainability differences or artefacts of measurement, disclosure, and aggregation choices. The study builds an original EU financial-institution dataset combining conventional finance KPIs with structured Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosure variables aligned with typical CSRD-style reporting content. A transparent “Core ESG” rating is then derived using principal component analysis (PCA) to replicate an underlying latent sustainability dimension while limiting subjective weighting. The resulting Core ESG rating is benchmarked against provider ratings for EU financial institutions from MSCI, ISS ESG, and Sustainable Fitch to assess (i) how closely the latter tracks each provider and (ii) whether systematic gaps emerge by institutional type (e.g., banks versus insurers) and regional orientation (regional i.e. Landesbanken versus non-regional institutions). The design is motivated by evidence that ESG ratings diverge substantially across agencies due to differences in scope, measurement, and weighting, with important consequences for comparability and capital-market interpretation (Berg et al., 2022; Christensen et al., 2022). By combining an explicit data model with a PCA-based aggregation consistent with recent work on rating disagreement and aggregation methods (Bissoondoyal-Bheenick et al., 2024), the paper provides an empirically implementable framework to diagnose whether rating methodologies generate structural disadvantages for regionally anchored financial institutions.

Dr. Dorottya Edina Kozma (p)

Green finance is an essential component of the European Union's strategy for developing a climate-neutral economy, and cohesion policy is currently its major instrument for tackling disparities among EU territories. Increased interlinkages between green finance and cohesion policy fuel interesting research topics about their combined impact on European territorial trajectories. The research aims to find if there is any compatibility or if it can create disparities.
Following a regional approach, the research has built and integrated the Green Dedicated Investments (GDI) indicators within a framework linking green finance and cohesion policy. By using information at the NUTS-2 level of regions, the research adopts a research strategy that examines the spatial distribution of green investments and their links with the intensity of cohesion policy and regional development outcomes. In this context, the research will employ spatial analysis and panel regression models to evaluate the impact of green finance and cohesion policy on regional growth and productivity.
This also allowed for gaining insights into the way economic funds from green investments concentrate more in developed and more innovation-intense regions compared to structural funds from cohesion policies focusing more on less developed regions across Europe. The econometric results show a positive contribution of green finance to long-run regional development; however, the importance varies from region to region. It also indicates that in less developed regions, the effectiveness of green investments depends largely on the support from cohesion policies focusing on improving institutional capacity.
However, the research concludes that green finance on its own might not be sufficient to ensure a territorially balanced green transition. Indeed, cohesion policy is critical to the mediation of the regional consequences of green investments and to ensuring that the green transition is aligned with inclusive and sustainable development paths in Europe. The results of the research confirm the importance of policy consistency and illustrate the potential of the GDI indicators for assessing the territorial consequences of green finance.

Dr. Zoltan Andras Daniel (p), Dr. Tamás Molnár

In the "turbulent times" of fiscal constraints and high interest rates, the composition of green financing sources becomes critical for regional resilience. The Central and Eastern European (CEE) region relies heavily on European Union funding (e.g., RRF, Cohesion Funds) to drive its green transition. However, a key debate in regional science is whether these public funds "crowd in" private capital (acting as a catalyst) or "crowd out" private investment (creating dependency). This paper addresses this issue by decomposing the Green Dedicated Investment (GDI) indicator into public (GDIpub) and private (GDIpriv) components.
Using a panel dataset of the Visegrád Four (V4) countries from 2018 to 2024, we analyze the interaction between EU climate funding inflows and private green fixed capital formation. Our results indicate a dual dynamic: in advanced capital regions, public funds successfully catalyze private GDI (positive multiplier effect), whereas in lagging regions, EU funds often substitute for the lack of private capital, leading to a "subsidy trap." The study argues that the sustainability of the GDI trajectory depends on shifting the financing mix from public-dominated to private-led models. We propose a new metric, the "Green Multiplier Effect," to evaluate the efficiency of resource utilization in regional policy.

Dr. Katalin Liptak (p)

The transition toward a low-carbon economy is reshaping regional labour markets across Europe, creating new opportunities while potentially deepening existing territorial inequalities. This study investigates regional employment disparities in the Visegrád countries (Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) at the NUTS2 level between 2000 and 2024, with particular attention to structural characteristics relevant to the green transition. By linking labour market performance to broader development conditions – including human capital, innovation capacity, economic structure, and infrastructure – the analysis provides insights into regions’ preparedness to absorb green dedicated investments (GDI) and benefit from sustainability-oriented growth.
Using principal component analysis and cluster analysis, regions are grouped according to multidimensional labour market and development profiles. Beta and sigma convergence methods are applied to examine the dynamics of regional employment disparities over time, highlighting how economic cycles and external shocks influence convergence patterns. The results reveal persistent structural heterogeneity across regions, suggesting unequal capacities to adapt to structural transformations associated with decarbonisation and the emerging green economy.
While long-term convergence in employment rates is observable, it is highly sensitive to macroeconomic conditions. Convergence weakened during the global financial crisis and became unstable in the period marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, indicating that shocks can disproportionately affect structurally weaker regions – those likely to face greater challenges in attracting and utilising green investments. The findings imply that the spatial distribution of GDI may reinforce existing development gradients unless accompanied by targeted policies addressing skills, innovation systems, and institutional capacity.
By integrating labour market analysis with perspectives on green transformation, the study contributes to understanding how regional socio-economic structures shape the territorial impacts of sustainability-oriented investments. The results highlight the importance of differentiated, place-based policies to ensure that the green transition supports not only environmental goals but also inclusive regional development across Central Europe.