Human capital as the growth factor in regional competitiveness

In the recent years, the world economy has undergone an enormous transformation. It can be noted that it is not only based on industry, but also on knowledge. Achieving a competitive advantage by regions is further focused on investing in fixed assets, but, what is also important, in human capital. At present, a factor that is increasingly important in achieving competitiveness is the ability to use intangible resources. Expenditures on education and research, investing in people, their knowledge and skills are an essential precondition of raising competitiveness. In the case of a highly qualified staff, it allows the efficient introduction of new technologies and the creation of new directions for its development. The competitiveness of the regions is influenced, inter alia, by human talents, knowledge, entrepreneurship, initiative and own resources to improve living conditions. Human capital is thus a key determinant of the competitiveness of regions in Poland. Therefore, the priority of this article is to analyze the impact of selected components of human capital on the competitiveness of regions in Poland in the years 2007-2014. The article is both theoretical and empirical. The first part reviews the literature closely related to the topic of the work. The second part includes a statistical analysis and a construction of a panel model estimated by the method of least squares. GRETL program was used for calculations.