ASSESMENT OF LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF NORTH MACEDONIA: MUNICIPALITIES’ ANALYSIS
ASSESMENT OF LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF NORTH MACEDONIA: MUNICIPALITIES’ ANALYSIS

Summary/Abstract: Measured by various objective indicators such as assessments of the urban and rural planning, valuation of the environmental and anti-pollution strategies, the adequacy of communal services, the impact of the economic policies, and educational and social care services, the local economic development (LED) concept offers insight into the functioning of the local economies and into the local government policies’ impact. This research aims to fill the gap in the literature by examining the residents’ satisfaction of the degree to which various LED indicators are considered real problems in their local communities for the case of North Macedonia. The paper is largely exploratory offering theoretical understanding of perceptions of economic problems on a local scale. In addition, using survey data from various municipalities with divergent economic development patterns in North Macedonia, the multidimensional structure of the overall residents’ satisfaction is constructed, where perceptions of the various dimensions of municipalities’ competences are assessed. Across the municipalities, the biggest dissatisfaction of the residents was related to the public areas’ maintenance, municipality waste management, and communal services. However, for some LED indicators, the results are more divergent, such as the traffic related problems and the local roads adequacy, with rural municipalities recording higher residents’ satisfaction. This analysis gives rise to an improved diagnostic assessment of local economic resources pointing out the most rigorous problems in North Macedonia, leading to a more robust economic strategy and evidence based decision making. The implementation of the local development goals and measurable indicators can become an important contribution to the local economic performance and can become increasingly important for North Macedonia, considering the upcoming global crisis and inter-state migrations, as well as technological advances and consequential spatial differences and imbalances.

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