The Specifics of Measurement the Urban Competitiveness at the National and International Level

Abstract

The article involves analysis of urban competitiveness from the national and international perspective. The analysis is focused on possibilities of application of different methods, widely used for the assessment of both the company‘s, national and regional competitiveness, as well as on identification of advantages and disadvantages of such methods. The article also involves introduction of methodological guidelines on the assessment of urban competitiveness from the national and international perspective, based on results of theoretical and empirical analysis. The empirical study is based on analysis of the sample of Kaunas, the second largest city of Lithuania. From the national perspective the assessment of Kaunas city competitiveness is based on comparing it with other major cities of Lithuania – the country‘s capital Vilnius and Klaipeda, by employing statistical data of 2007-2010. The availability of official data at the regional level revealed that the assessment of international competitiveness of the cities, located in regions which, based on the territorial statistics units nomenclature, are attached to the third level (NUTS 3), should be equaled to the regional competitiveness itself. Measurement of Kaunas city and region competitiveness from the international perspective is based on statistical data of 2007-2011. The identification of specifics of measurement the urban competitiveness at the national and international level, presented in the article, is one of the ambitions to promote the methodological background for urban governance and improvement of competitiveness of Lithuanian cities. The article presents the continuity of the research work of the authors in the sphere of urban competitiveness measurement.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.23.3.1272