AN ANALYSIS OF INTELLECTUAL POTENTIAL AND ITS IMPACT ON THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

The research presented in this article seeks to evaluate the impact of intellectual potential on a country's competitiveness as measured by the most important indicators of economic growth and standard of living. The population with tertiary education as well as with the relevant professional competences required for entrepreneurship and employment form the study group. Intellectual potential indicators along with general and partial productivity indicators, i.e. multifactor productivity (MFP) and labour productivity (LP) respectively, are calculated for different population groups using various methods, with the impact of MFP and LP in relation to each other subsequently analysed. The research revealed that the factors with the greatest impact on LP are: the share of people in the employed population involved in R&D, the share of researchers in the total employed population, as well as the level of tertiary education in terms of the total population as well as for the economically active population and self-employed persons. It was also found that the intensity of the influence of intellectual potential on LP has decreased, but only insignificantly. This decrease indicates the need to strengthen the role of other resources in relation to economic development and improvements in competitiveness. Today, MFP, as the gross indicator of economic progress and standard of living, has no apparent dependence on most of the studies intellectual potential indicators with the exception of the share of professionals with tertiary education (correlation coefficient = 0.440). This finding suggests an increased need to balance the use of all production resources, in particular through innovative work and the development of skills which are not necessarily formed in the field of tertiary education, at least in its formal sector.