Zsófia Vas

Regionális klaszterek és agglomerációs előnyök: Feldolgozóipar a magyar városrégiókban

Specialisation of regions and urban areas is one of the main sources of economic growth and development. The region which is able to strengthen its key traded sectors can gain significant advantages in regional competition. An efficient approach to identify a region’s key sectors is cluster mapping which is designed to reveal geographical concentration of growing, dominant and innovative economic activities. For the years between 2014 and 2020, it has been declared a high priority of EU regional policy making to promote smart specialisation and re-industrialisation – in which regional clusters play an important role. The changes in the global economy as well as economic shocks have made it crucial to identify all potential economic activities in regions that reach a critical mass, have higher innovation capabilities and contribute to the development of regional competitive advantages. Among all traded economic activities, manufacturing has become vital in Hungary. It promotes technological innovation, productivity and trade, produces for export, generates economic growth and employment, and has an increasing demand for services. Given that place-based policies put a particular emphasis on the spatiality of economic activities, it is important to determine what characterises the spatial distribution of manufacturing in the urban areas of Hungary, and which sectors have reached a critical mass for clustering. Therefore the present study analyses the spatial distribution and the critical mass of manufacturing subsections in Hungarian urban areas. It shows which manufacturing subsections in Hungary could reach and maintain its critical mass between the time of Hungary’s accession to the EU in 2004 and the time of the global economic crisis. We examine the spatial distribution on the level of urban areas because they reflect residential, business and labour relations. The study follows the slightly modified methodology of cluster mapping developed by the European Cluster Observatory, which identifies potential clusters based on three criteria: size, specialisation and focus. We use data on employees, and we compare the results of two years, 2005 and 2010. As we expected, we can demonstrate which sectors in manufacturing are worth specialising in by urban areas and whose support contributes to the further development of regions. The main conclusion is that Hungarian urban areas have different developmental trajectories, and we might witness re-industrialisation processes only in a few, less developed regions in Hungary.

Spatial differences of reindustrialization in a post-socialist economy: manufacturing in the Hungarian counties

ABSTRACT Over the past two and a half decades, the post-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, including Hungary, have become an integral part of the global economy. Following the change of regime, the rate of foreign direct investment increased, modern industries emerged and exports became significant. However, this process was halted by the global economic crisis in many advanced and transition economies, and the concept of ‘reindustrialization’ emerged as one of the economic policy responses to the new challenges generated by the crisis. In our paper, we study whether reindustrialization is present following the lowest point of the crisis in one of the post-socialist countries of the EU, in Hungary. If so, in which regions and industries, and under what conditions? Our research indicates that reindustrialization can be generally observed only in a few rural regions after 2009, limited to only one or two industries, while, for instance, in the capital and in its agglomerations and in urban regions with large research universities, deindustrialization is more likely to take place.