CENTROPE Regional Development Report. Technical Report on Comparing Cross-border Regions

Consistent with previous results, we find that CENTROPE has grown faster than could be expected from an average polycentric cross-border region in the period 2004-2008. Furthermore – also consistent with previous results – CENTROPE also in comparison to other polycentric cross-border regions is a region which is highly attractive to FDI and whose comparative advantage primarily seems to be rooted in medium skills while the share of high skilled in the population is low in CENTROPE also relative to other polycentric cross-border regions. Although regional disparities in terms of per-capita GDP are high in CENTROPE, CENTROPE is not the polycentric cross-border region with the largest internal disparities, and relative to this comparison group (and in contrast to a comparison with the EU average) the share of R&D expenditure in GDP has increased more than average in the last decade.