Considerations to the Interpretation of Regional Competitiveness

Abstract

Competitiveness is nowadays a more and more widely used term concerning the evaluation of regions, with a commonplace but barely analysed proposition (i.e. regions and cities are in competition) in the background. Although several „official" definitions of the term exist, the serious doubts regarding its content account for the continuous reconsideration.

The paper argues for the microeconomic-approach interpretation of regional competition and competitiveness. The criteria of the competitiveness of regions are twofold: what are the competitive positions of the local actors in the global markets like, and to what extent can the locality (as a special asset) contribute to their competitiveness. In this sense of the notion, regional competitiveness can not be properly qualified on the basis of the usual ex-post indices of the 'regional macroeconomy', it should be studied with new methods placing microsphere into the limelight.