THE COMPETITIVENESS AND ITS MEASUREMENT BY MEANS OF THE PYRAMID MODEL

The competition itself, the fighting for the scarce resources is as old as the mankind. However, the naming ‘competitiveness’ has been present in the specialized literature since the 1980s. Nowadays, by crescendo of the international competition, concept of the competitiveness has become increasingly important among the decision makers at national economic and corporate levels alike. However, almost everyone means something different by competitiveness, even the researchers dealing with it have not created a uniform definition accepted by everyone. Most of them have worded their competitiveness definition with regard to corporate and national economic levels. The localization appears more pronouncedly in the economic formed and changed by effect of the globalization; economic roles of the regions, sub-regions are increasingly revaluated. This procedure is also mirrored by the competitiveness-themed theoretical and practical researches of the recent years; a significant part of them is aimed at some local levels. Topic of present treatise is the investigation of competitiveness of the regional level, among the local levels. This choice is justified by the fact the European Union decides about disbursement of the financial sources improving the competitiveness, with regard to the regional level NUTS 2. Models dealing with examination of the regional competitiveness can basically be grouped around two basic models. Members of the model family built on the benefits have largely a case study nature while the pyramid model to be presented belongs to the so called input-performance-output models. Basis of the model is the success factors which influence the region’s competitiveness in a long term through metastases. And the success factors determine such basic factors as the research-development; the organizational background of the region’s economy; investments from the outside; infrastructure and human capital; as well as the institutions and social capital. At next level of the model, there are such index numbers suitable for establishing the competitiveness sequence as the income, employment and labour productivity. On top of the pyramid, there is the last purpose of the competitive economy which is to increase the society’s quality of life, standard of living. The final part of this essay will show the connection of the basic categories and basic factors of the pyramid model, through the example of Northern Great Plain region Hungary. According practice of the EU, GDP per capita is the basic category which determines the developmental sequence of the Hungarian regions. Presentation of the basic factors happens based on the most recent data (regarding to 2012/2013) of KSH (Központi Statisztikai Hivatal – Centrals Statistical Office) sorted by area. The treatise is of theoretical nature and partially based on an empirical research