Within this study, employee professional development is conceptually understood as a component of lifelong learning. The concepts of lifelong learning, a learning society and even a learning economy are popular and theoretically justified as necessary prerequisites for the competitiveness and the economic performance of countries in the modern world. The problem is that Latvia (like most countries with low economic performance) is still not a learning societyespecially compared to the countries of the European Union. In this regard, it became necessary to empirically measure the economic importance of employee professional development in the modern world in order to justify the management of lifelong learning based on the economic paradigm. For an empirical interpretation of lifelong learning and employee professional development, the author used the Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) and indicators of the economic performance of the world's countries for the period from 2018 to 2020. Applying four methods of quantitative data analysiscorrelation analysis, regression analysis, comparison of means and discriminant analysis, the author proved the following: in the modern world, employee development is mainly a factor, but also an indicator of competitiveness and economic performance of countries, since significant investments are required to implement employee professional development. Nevertheless, the sustainable management of lifelong learning and the self-motivation of employees helps to create a learning society not only based on material investment, but also through the development of a learning culture.

The purpose of this article is the conceptualization and empirical interpretation of the notions of a developed transport infrastructure and developed production, as well as the identification of tools for their measurement in a territory. The main research questions to which the authors intend to find answers in this article are the following: (1) what does it mean (conceptually and empirically) 'developed transport infrastructure' and 'developed production' in a given territory? (2) how to measure the state of development (i.e., the static level of development) of transport infrastructure and production in a given territory? The article uses the following research methods: a systemic analysis of theoretical findings and empirical evidence from previous studies, a method of means for identifying developed / underdeveloped transport infrastructure/production, and a mapping method to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the country's transport infrastructure. The results of this study show that, firstly, there are two main approaches to the conceptual understanding of transport infrastructure and productiontraditional (narrower) and innovative (wider); secondly, developed transport infrastructure and developed products in the EU country are interpreted empirically with scores above the EU average, thirdly, almost all EU countries demonstrate a developed or undeveloped transport infrastructure and production, regardless of their measurement tools, i.e. different measurement tools show nearly the same result. The results of this study will help the authors in the future, based on quantitative empirical data and case studies, to answer the 'umbrella' research question about what is a priority for the economic development of the territory: a developed transport infrastructure or a developed production, i.e. what is the focus for investments in the conditions of objectively limited resources?