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RESEARCH JOURNALS

 

INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH JOURNAL OF MYKOLAS ROMERIS UNIVERSITY
"INTELLECTUAL ECONOMICS"
ISSN 1822-8011 (print), ISSN 1822-8038 (online)

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lithuanian

INTELLECTUAL ECONOMICS 2008, Number 1(3)

Gediminas Mačys

COHESION AND COMPETITIVENESS OF REGIONS IN LITHUANIA
Mykolas Romeris University Publishing Centre. Vilnius. Lithuania 2008 Nr.1(3), p. 41–50 macys

Abstract

The growing interest has emerged in the ‘regional foundations’ of national competitiveness, and with developing new forms of regionally-based policy interventions to help improve the competitiveness of every region and major city, and hence the national economy as a whole.
In fact, a still small but rapidly growing literature now exists on the topic of ‘territorial competitiveness’. However, this new focus on ‘place competitiveness’ raises a host of questions as to what, precisely, is meant by the competitiveness of regions, cities and localities. First findings on the evaluation of regionally-based national policy interventions, their impact on territorial cohesion and resulting comparative advantages of regions of Lithuania are analyzed in this paper. The findings indicate a higher investment in infrastructure than in the knowledge economy development, also a faster development in already strong areas of the country. At the same time there appears to exist a tendency towards further agglomeration of high-income economic activities. This signals that the growth generated by the cohesion support might lead to widening regional disparities. For least-developed regions these interventions should help to consolidate local resources and facilitate efforts to build up key capital factors that will help to guarantee their future competitive success, for more-developed regions and big towns of Lithuania are likely in need to employ a wider range of different interventions addressing specific market failures that hold back their performance and competitiveness.

JEL Classification R580.

Keywords: regions, cohesion, competitiveness, comparative advantages.






Responsibilities for information Dalė Dzemydienė
E-mail: int.economics@mruni.lt