Jan Ženka

Regional Competitiveness in Central European Countries: In Search of a Useful Conceptual Framework

ABSTRACT The goal of this discussion paper is to examine the relevance of selected influential theoretical and conceptual approaches to regional competitiveness for specific geographical and institutional contexts of Central European (CE) regions. We argue that strategic documents and policies (both nation- and region-wide) in CE countries are based on un-critical applications of a few popular concepts of competitiveness that were originally proposed and mainly applied in Western European and US regions. Existing empirical evidence documents a strong role of exogenous factors of competitiveness in CE regions, the in-house character of firm innovations and weak demand for innovations, and other impediments of R&D collaboration. We suggest that these (and other factors) limit the applicability of concepts such as regional innovation systems and Porterian clusters in the context of many CE regions. On the other hand, we argue that some other concepts such as the global production networks perspective or related variety and economic complexity can provide some relevant and inspiring frameworks for analysing regional competitiveness in CE countries.

Industrial specialization and economic performance: A case of Czech microregions

An influential body of literature suggests that economic diversity rather than specialization fuels the economic performance of regions and nations. The authors argue that this hypothesis has no universal applicability and that a more differentiated view is needed. In particular, historical specificity of the local environment and structural characteristics of regional economies should be taken into account. They focus on the effects of industrial specialization on economic performance and the vulnerability of Central European post-communist regions, namely Czech microregions with less than 200,000 inhabitants. They examine whether the economic performance and vulnerability of these regions is fuelled rather by industrial specialization or diversity when controlling for other potential determinants of regional economic performance. Their findings show that the dependence of Czech regions on manufacturing correlates with higher economic performance but also with higher regional vulnerability. In addition, industrial specialization within manufacturing was found to be instrumental for the economic performance of regions with high dependence on manufacturing. With a decreasing share of employment in manufacturing, industrial diversity rather than specialization becomes more valuable for the economic performance of Czech regions.

Resilience of metropolitan, urban and rural regions: a Central European perspective

Abstract In this article, we examine a relationship between population/economic size and resilience of Czech regions. More specifically, we ask if there are any significant differences among metropolitan cores and hinterlands, urban regions and rural regions in (post)crisis economic development in the period 2009–2013. Three aspects of resilience were considered: volatility of unemployment, renewal (increase in economic performance compared to other regions) and reorientation (measured by the intensity of structural changes in total employment). We found relatively small differences among particular types of regions and high intra-group heterogeneity. Specialized industrial urban regions exhibited the fastest economic growth in the (post)crisis period. Metropolitan cores lagged slightly behind, but experienced relatively stable economic development. Although rural regions exhibited the highest unemployment volatility, they did not lag behind in terms of value added growth. Regional resilience in a small open economy like Czechia seems to be predominantly driven by extraregional factors such as the position in global production networks and economic performance in particular industries or large transnational corporations.

Value creation and value capture in the automotive industry: Empirical evidence from Czechia

This article investigates how distinct tiers of firms contribute to value creation and value capture in the automotive industry. We employ firm-level indicators to evaluate the value creation and capture of distinct supplier tiers in the Czech automotive industry, while considering differences between foreign-owned and domestic firms. Our analysis suggests that the economic effects of the automotive industry largely depend on its capital intensity and that mostly foreign-owned higher tier firms generate and capture greater value than lower tier firms, which include the vast majority of domestic suppliers.

Labour productivity of agricultural business companies and cooperatives in the Czech Republic: A micro-regional level analysis

Abstract Drawing on empirical evidence from the Czech Republic, differences in agricultural labour productivity at the micro-regional level are examined. The role of geographical factors: natural conditions, landscape fragmentation, localisation and urbanization economies, are discussed. In addition, we also test the effects of farm size structure to capture the results of internal scale economies. The key importance of natural conditions is confirmed: they were significantly more important than farm characteristics such as size structure, ownership status and mode of production. Regional agricultural labour productivity was positively influenced by the nominal price of agricultural land and population density. Surprisingly, micro-regions dominated by large farms performed at lower productivity levels than micro-regions with fragmented farm size structure in the Czech Republic.

Post-Crisis Spatial Development of Creative Industries: Evidence from Czechia

The aim of this chapter is to explore changes in the spatial distribution of creative industries in Czechia. We focus on the post-crisis period 2009–2013 using a multi-scale perspective. The core of the empirical research is based on a unique data set compiled from an annual survey of Czech-based firms by the Czech Statistical Office in productive sectors in 2009 and 2013. These data cover employment and financial indicators such as production, value added and wages, disaggregated to particular industries according to the NACE 2-digit classification and are available for the level of municipalities with extended competencies (micro-regions). We compare metropolitan regions (further divided into urban cores and commuting hinterlands) and non-metropolitan regions from the viewpoint of the spatial distribution, sectoral structure and productivity of the creative industries (a cross-sectional analysis for 2013 and 2009–2013 changes). We ask if, and to what extent, the (post)-crisis development altered the spatial and sectoral organisation of the creative industries in Czechia.

Intra-urban patterns of creative industries in polycentric city

Abstract The principal objective of this paper is to evaluate the spatial patterns of creative industries in a micro-geographic perspective. As the creative industries represent a highly heterogeneous complex, only selected creative industries were studied (culture, marketing and advertising, printing, publishing, architecture). The polycentric industrial city of Ostrava was chosen as the surveyed area. Various spatial statistical methods (e.g. nearest neighbour analysis, kernel density estimation) were applied for the needs of assessment. The results show that spatial patterns of creative industries at intra-urban level do not vary significantly from their counterparts in Western Europe. Despite the fact that Ostrava is highly industrialized polycentric city with relatively weak position of the city centre, creative industries are highly concentrated into the historical city centre and the inner city.