IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sav/journl/v70y2022i5p450-471.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Determinants of Competitive Advantage for Europe’s Regions: Digital Economy at the Start of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Author

Listed:
  • Pavel Zdražil

    (Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Pardubice)

  • Ivana Kraftová

    (Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Pardubice)

Abstract

The goal of this paper is first to evaluate the development of the digital economy of Europe and its macroregions over the past decade, then to map how strongly selected factors have influenced these changes. Research based on the revealed comparative advantage (RCA) approach between 2009 and 2018 was primarily conducted at the level of Europe’s main macroregions. Analysis of three most significant global economic leaders shows that China is overtaking Europe’s position in the digital economy. Europe’s regional aspects are an important negative cause of this development, with these regions exhibiting four different models of how RCA changes. After breaking down RCA development, shift-share analysis revealed that global influences, working as exogenous factors for increasing competitiveness, contribute the most to digital economy competitiveness. In second place, the economies’ competitiveness is influenced endogenously by their institutional framework, which shapes the factor concerning regional characteristics that affect all sectors.

Suggested Citation

  • Pavel Zdražil & Ivana Kraftová, 2022. "The Determinants of Competitive Advantage for Europe’s Regions: Digital Economy at the Start of the Fourth Industrial Revolution," Journal of Economics / Ekonomicky casopis, Institute of Economic Research, Slovak Academy of Sciences, vol. 70(5), pages 450-471, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sav:journl:v:70:y:2022:i:5:p:450-471
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.sav.sk/journals/uploads/0905150005%2022%20Zdrazil-Kraftova%20+%20SR.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sacha Garben, 2019. "The regulatory challenge of occupational safety and health in the online platform economy," International Social Security Review, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 72(3), pages 95-112, July.
    2. Ballance, Robert H & Forstner, Helmut & Murray, Tracy, 1987. "Consistency Tests of Alternative Measures of Comparative Advantage," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(1), pages 157-161, February.
    3. Raphaël Chiappini, 2014. "Persistence vs. mobility in industrial and technological specialisations: evidence from 11 Euro area countries," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 159-187, January.
    4. Eleni Laitsou & Antonios Kargas & Dimitris Varoutas, 2020. "Digital Competitiveness in the European Union Era: The Greek Case," Economies, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-33, October.
    5. H. G. Grubel & P. J. Lloyd, 1971. "The Empirical Measurement of Intra‐Industry Trade," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 47(4), pages 494-517, December.
    6. Juergen Donges & James Riedel, 1977. "The expansion of manufactured exports in developing countries: An empirical assessment of s upply and demand issues," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 113(1), pages 58-87, March.
    7. Andrea Renda, 2017. "Will the DSM Strategy Spur Innovation?," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 52(4), pages 197-201, July.
    8. Edgar S. Dunn, 1960. "A Statistical And Analytical Technique For Regional Analysis," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(1), pages 97-112, January.
    9. repec:bla:ecorec:v:47:y:1971:i:120:p:494-517 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Ulrich Witt & Christian Gross, 2020. "The rise of the “service economy” in the second half of the twentieth century and its energetic contingencies," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 231-246, April.
    11. Sanja Franc, 2020. "Competition Policy In The Digital Economy," Economic Thought and Practice, Department of Economics and Business, University of Dubrovnik, vol. 29(2), pages 491-512, december.
    12. Thomas Vollrath, 1991. "A theoretical evaluation of alternative trade intensity measures of revealed comparative advantage," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 127(2), pages 265-280, June.
    13. Inka Havrila & Pemasiri Gunawardana, 2003. "Analysing Comparative Advantage and Competitiveness: An Application to Australia's Textile and Clothing Industries," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(1), pages 103-117, March.
    14. Fernández-Portillo, Antonio & Almodóvar-González, Manuel & Hernández-Mogollón, Ricardo, 2020. "Impact of ICT development on economic growth. A study of OECD European union countries," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    15. Štefan Bojnec, 2001. "Trade and Revealed Comparative Advantage Measures: Regional and Central and East European Agricultural Trade," Eastern European Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(2), pages 72-98, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Falkowski Krzysztof, 2017. "Long-Term Comparative Advantages of the Eurasian Economic Union Member States in International Trade," International Journal of Management and Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of World Economy, vol. 53(4), pages 27-49, December.
    2. Andrey A. Gnidchenko & Vladimir A. Salnikov, 2021. "Trade Intensity, Net Trade, and Revealed Comparative Advantage," HSE Working papers WP BRP 244/EC/2021, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    3. Andrey A. Gnidchenko & Vladimir A. Salnikov, 2015. "Net Comparative Advantage Index: Overcoming the Drawbacks of the Existing Indices," HSE Working papers WP BRP 119/EC/2015, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    4. Lundmark, Robert, 2010. "European trade in forest products and fuels," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 235-251, August.
    5. khalifah, noor, 1995. "Dynamic Comparative Advantage of the Asean Countries," Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, vol. 29, pages 131-159.
    6. Amador, João & Cabral, Sónia & Ramos Maria, José, 2007. "International Trade Patterns over the Last Four Decades: How does Portugal Compare with other Cohesion Countries?," MPRA Paper 5996, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Martin Grančay & Tomáš Dudáš, 2019. "Bilateral trade flows and comparative advantage: does the size matter?," Society and Economy, Akadémiai Kiadó, Hungary, vol. 41(4), pages 397-413, December.
    8. Alje van Dam & Andres Gomez‐Lievano & Frank Neffke & Koen Frenken, 2023. "An information‐theoretic approach to the analysis of location and colocation patterns," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(1), pages 173-213, January.
    9. João Amador & Sónia Cabral & José Maria, 2011. "A Simple Cross-Country Index of Trade Specialization," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 447-461, July.
    10. Fertö, I., 2018. "Global Agri-food Trade Competitiveness: Gross Versus Value Added Exports," AGRIS on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Faculty of Economics and Management, vol. 10(4), December.
    11. João Amador & Sónia Cabral & José Maria, 2010. "What can we learn from the distribution of trade patterns?," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 9(2), pages 77-95, August.
    12. Matkovski, Bojan & Zekić, Stanislav & Đokić, Danilo & Jurjević, Žana & Đurić, Ivan, 2022. "Export competitiveness of agri-food sector during the EU integration process: Evidence from the Western Balkans," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 11(1).
    13. Tri WIDODO, 2009. "Comparative Advantage: Theory, Empirical Measures And Case Studies," Review of Economic and Business Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 4, pages 57-82, November.
    14. Beňuš Ondrej, 2019. "Competitiveness of the Czech Meat Industry on the Single Market," European Countryside, Sciendo, vol. 11(3), pages 443-461, September.
    15. Depetris Guiguet, Edith & García Arancibia, Rodrigo & Rossini, Gustavo, 2010. "Consistencia de indicadores de especialización en el comercio internacional. Aplicación al caso de la mantequilla en Argentina y Uruguay = Consistency of Specialization Indicators. An Application to A," Revista de Métodos Cuantitativos para la Economía y la Empresa = Journal of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, vol. 9(1), pages 85-105, June.
    16. Danna-Buitrago, Jenny Paola & Stellian, Rémi, 2022. "Which revealed comparative advantage index to choose? Theoretical and empirical considerations," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), December.
    17. Ufuk gunes Bebek, 2011. "Consistency of the proposed additive measures of revealed comparative advantage," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(3), pages 2491-2499.
    18. Fertő, Imre & Hubbard, Lionel J., 2005. "Az agrárkereskedelem dinamikája - A csatlakozó országok esete [The dynamics of agri-food trade patterns - the accession countries case]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(1), pages 24-38.
    19. Carraresi, Laura & Banterle, Alessandro, 2008. "Measuring competitiveness in the EU market: a comparison between food industry and agriculture," 2008 International Congress, August 26-29, 2008, Ghent, Belgium 43692, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    20. Ervani, Eva & Widodo, Tri & M. Purnawan, Edhie, 2018. "East Asia’s Pattern of Export Specialization: Does Indonesia Compete with Japan, China, Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore?," MPRA Paper 85259, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fourth Industrial Revolution; digital economy; European macroregions; revealed comparative advantage; shift share analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sav:journl:v:70:y:2022:i:5:p:450-471. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Renac (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eusavsk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.