Assessment of Competitiveness of Chosen European Union Regions

Eighty five European NUTS 2 regions of 6 European countries: Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia are considered in the paper. Attention is focused on the assessment of their competitiveness. Data were obtained from the Statistical Office of the European Communities. Four indicators of competitiveness (i.e. quality of labour forces and innovations, labour market, economic activity and infrastructure) were determined by means of factor analysis. The factor scores of indicated factors in the regions were divided into groups by means of multivariate classification techniques (cluster analysis and classification trees). The outcome of the analysis is the classification of groups of regions with similar competitiveness factors.