PECULIARITIES OF INTERRELATION OF TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS

Abstract

A variety of measurement tools is used to evaluate the territorial development in the world, for instance, indicators, indices, etc. These measurement tools are applied to measure certain regions of a country and to assess the development of a country as well as to compare countries with each other or in relation to the previous years. In Latvia, certain methodology for calculating the level of territorial development has been in place for about 15 years. Parallel to the official methodology, scientists and researchers of Latvia offer use of an alternative methodology and indices for measuring territorial development. Having analysed various theoretical approaches to a relatively new direction of the economic science within the framework of Economics of Development, the author of the research offers her own perception of the conceptual nature of the territorial development: the key indicator of any territorial development is related to People, their material well–being, and health, level of education, spirituality, and overall satisfaction with life. In other words, a developed territory is the one, where the number of people increased, and these people are wealthy, healthy, educated, spiritually developed, and satisfied with their lives, but a relatively more developed territory is the one, where these indicators are higher. In order to understand interrelation between the development elements, the author of this article on the basis of elements of the newly developed methodological model of measurement of territorial development, analyses their correlation, considering the world’s countries as an object and building on the available official statistical information and qualitative research data.