Measuring the knowledge base of the Hungarian economy: spatial characteristics of innovation-system synergies

The emerging issues of the knowledge-based economy have been followed by tense arguments in recent years. Theoretical economists often doubt the need for economic identification of its characteristics. Attempts to analyse the parameters of the knowledge based economy have been made in innovation-system literature, the new institutional economics, evolutionary economics etc. The authors build on previous studies in the Netherlands and Germany in attempting to measure the knowledge base of the economy by estimating the synergies among knowledge creation, knowledge exploitation and organizational control of innovation systems. The spatial knowledge base was estimated by entropy of three-dimensional distribution of Hungarian firms and by mutual information flowing between the three dimensions (geography, technology, and organization). The results indicate that the knowledge base in Hungary is strongly differentiated by region. Budapest and its conurbation are central to the country according to every indicator. The motive forces for the knowledge-based economy in the North-West of the country are foreign-owned companies and FDI, while in the East and South they are public institutions. The national level seems no longer to add to the synergy among the regional innovation systems.