Competitive positions of a region in innovative economic development

Abstract

With a case study of the Kemerovo oblast coal industry, this paper quantitatively assesses the impact of innovative development on competitiveness of a region in a range of economic sectors. It is proposed to assess regional competitiveness based on a number of factors, such as regional economic capacity, efficiency of regional economic capacity utilization, a region’s attractiveness to the population, business attractiveness of the region, and innovation capacity of the regional economy. The competitiveness of five regions of the Siberian Federal District, namely, Kemerovo, Novosibirsk and Tomsk oblasts, as well as Krasnoyarsk krai and Altai krai, is analyzed and compared. These regions have close trade and economic relations; many of their commodity, food and labor markets intersect, being subject to regional competition. The innovative development indicators that express the competitive advantages of the Kuzbass coal industry and, thus, of the regional economy are identified. Such indicators include expenditures on technological innovation, the number of advanced manufacturing technologies used, the share of employees with higher professional education in the regional coal industry workforce, workplace capital intensity, and workplace financial performance of the regional coal industry. It is established that the creation of “expensive” jobs for the Kuzbass coal industry contributes to the innovative economic development of the entire region.