Investment incentives as a tool of technological transfer

The Czech business environment is considered a successful recipient of strategic foreign capital but are the Czech regions able to effectively absorb and use the foreign presence to develop their business environment? The aim of this article is to determine the extent of which the Czech business environment is able to benefit from the investment incentives granted to FDI located in the territory of six selected regions. The absorption capacity of regions – intensity – of the opportunity to take over the technological level of FDI is examined on a sample of the Czech regions in a time series of thirteen years (2002 – 2017) using the data of the CzechInvest, the Czech Statistical Office, the OECD and annual reports of multinational companies. By means of a constructed indicator of technology transfer intensity, it was found out that from the point of view of the indicator development, there is no regional convergence and the regions show significant regional disparities in the absorption of foreign presence. However, all the regions are managing to increase their absorption capacity of FDI, nevertheless in relatively weak intensity (ranging from 30 to 50 %). Investment incentives stimulate the growth of regional productivity but unevenly. Based on the calculations made, conclusions related to the benefits of granting this kind of state aid can be drawn