Ból fantomowy czy realna strata? Wpływ utraty statusu stolicy województwa na rozwój gospodarczy i miejsce w hierarchii systemu osadniczego

Territorial-administrative reform implemented in 1998-1999 has reduced number of administrative regions in Poland from 49 to 16. Consequently 31 cities lost their status of voivodeshipregional capitals (two of new regionsvoivodeships have two capital cities each). The change raised protests and a lot of fears ofboth local authorities and local communities in those cities. They were afraid that lower administrative status would result not only in less jobs in public administration, but indirectly, it would also negatively affect economic development of cities. Those fears were met with understanding of central government who offered special support programme for those 31 cities (although the programme has never been fully implemented). The article verifies to what extent the actual development ion period ( 1998-2013) period confirmeds those negative expectations. The main research question is whether the loss of the status of the voivodeship regional capital administrative status is reflected in the subsequent worsening of the position in the hierarchy of cities. The changes of hierarchy are measured by anthe index based on several variables related to their population size, migration trends and economic development of the cities (measured by changes in property tax base, revenues from personal and corporate income taxes as well as level of unemployment). The question has not only empirical character but also theoretical importance for understanding of the impact of administrative status on economic position of the cities, which is discussed in classic urban theories staring from the Christaller's central places theory. Earlier research which concentrated on the perception of the change provided evidences of the strong subjective loss in the farmer voivodeship regional capitals, felt both by local communities and local political elites. But studies based on economic indicators led to less conclusive results. However, those earlier studies were conducted either tao early to take into account the long-term impact of the change or were based on over-simplistic methodological assumptions. Two reduce the impact of other alternative factors influencing development of cities, but not relevant to this study, and to focus on the impact of administrative status, this study e analysis of this article concentrates on comparisons of two pairs of cities: • Rrelatively big cities (population between 100,000 and -250,000 population)) cities which lost regionalthe status of voivodeship capitals in 1998 with a group of similar size cities which maintained the regional capital status;. • Ssmaller cities (50-100,000 population between 50,000 and 100,000) cities which lost regional capital status in 1998 with a group of similar size cities which have never been regionalvoivodeship capitals. The study it takes into account nort only the change trend after the 1998/99 reform, but also refers to compares it with an earlier trends (in 1992-1998 period) and to assesses the change ( or the lack of change) being result of the administrative reorganization. Empirical evidences suggest that, surprisingly, the smaller 50-100,000 population cities which have never been regionalvoivodeship capitals, have been the group which after 1998/99 reform has moved upward in the cities hierarchy in a most visible way. The impact of administrative status is therefore often over-estimated. Although there are cities which moved downward in the hierarchy of cities after the 1998/99 change, but there are also numerous cities which has improved their economic position significantly, in spite of the loss of regional administrative importancestatus. This trend is not significantly different from the one noted among cities which have maintained the voivodeshipregional capital status. The empirical investigation presented in thise article has been conducted within the frame of the research project on "East-German and Polish Cities in the Process of European Integration (CIT-IN)", funded by the German-Polish Scientific Foundation.