engleski

The New Economic Geography and Clustering in the Southeast European Region - The Case of Croatia

The New Economic Geography (NEG) explains the agglomeration as well as dispersion of economic activities and employment in the national and international context. On the national (or regional) level it deals with the efficient concentration of forces between developed and developing areas while on the global level it points out specialization and development differences among countries. The problems of regional policy on the national level arise especially when it deals with the aim to increase competitiveness. In the case of small countries such as Croatia and the growing importance of the SMEs, effective way to increase competitiveness would be through the formation of clusters because in that way companies can create stronger mutual network that will help SMEs in their efforts to place the production on the competitive international market and to create better connections with their customers and suppliers. The aim of the study is to explain the implications of NEG on location of economic activities in the Southeast European countries (case of Croatia). The paper deals with the location of production in Croatia so the location quotients are calculated at regional level in order to identify the core activities for the potential cluster development. The cluster analysis is applied and the Croatian counties are grouped according to the determined core economic activities. The results show ample cluster development potential in Croatia that will be significant for the further researches of companies' interconnections in Croatia but also all over the SEE region and for its better integration into the European and world economic movements.

new economic geography ; cluster ; location ; cluster analysis ; SEE region

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