Objective Competitiveness Ranking amongst EU Regions (Objective Method for Quantifying Regional Competitiveness - a case study applied to EU15 Regions)

Abstract

Nowadays the key target of Cohesion Policy is to promote the creation of conditions to improve the growth, and to increase the factors that lead to a real convergence (Economic and Social Cohesion). An important group of these factors is found when considering the competitivity of a Region that implies, (even whitout existintg a clear definition), to consider at the same time two different levels: - The first one through the specific factors to improve the development of the resident managerial weave (Innovation, Research & Development, enterprises nets, labour market, training, support in the use of new technologies, servicies to entreprises, etc.). – The second one, improving the enviromental conditions for the development of such an managerial activity (Transport and comunication infrastructures, environment and sustainable developpment ,use of renewable energies, etc.) The objetcive of the present paper is to propose an objective way to consider the totalitiy of factors simultaneously, in order to obtain a ranking of the of the regional competitivity, and to study his changes in the time. For this, it will be used the data base “REGIO” and techniques of ranking belonging to multicriteria decision making. The analyzed period is from 1987 to 2002 which shows interesting results mainly when compared with other analyses carried out.