Economic sector concentration and structural change in East-Central European NUTS 3 regions

The process of economic restructuring has been one of the most transformative forces in East-Central Europe since the 1990s. Despite the increasing attention to post-socialist transformation, the territorial dimension of structural economic change has not been sufficiently addressed in comparative empirical analyses. This article examines the dynamics of economic restructuring and sectoral concentration in East-Central Europe over the period 2000–2021. The objective is to identify regional patterns of change across NUTS 3 regions in five countries, with a specific focus on employment, gross value added, and labor productivity in seven broad economic sectors. The analysis seeks to answer two main questions: how structural transformation has differed among rural, intermediate, urban, and capital regions, and how the spatial concentration of manufacturing and service sectors has evolved, with particular attention to agglomeration advantages. To address these issues, the study employs Eurostat regional data and applies the Ellison-Glaeser index to measure sectoral spatial concentration, complemented by a functional regional typology that distinguishes predominantly rural regions (RUR), intermediate regions (INT), predominantly urban regions (URB), and population of capital (CAP) categories. The methodology combines quantitative indicators of employment and gross value added (GVA) dynamics with an assessment of concentration trends, thereby capturing both the intensity and the geography of sectoral change. The results indicate that capital regions have been the main beneficiaries of restructuring, concentrating knowledge-intensive and high-productivity service activities, while rural and intermediate regions often experienced reindustrialization centered on traditional manufacturing without parallel growth in advanced services. The findings further reveal that service sectors exhibit strong clustering in urban cores, whereas manufacturing remains more geographically distributed. By highlighting these divergent trajectories, the study demonstrates the embedded spatial inequalities that shape regional competitiveness. The contribution of this article lies in providing a disaggregated, longitudinal view of economic restructuring and sectoral concentration in the East-Central European context, offering both empirical evidence and implications for regional development and management policies.