The strategic priority of the European Union is research, development and innovation, as has been explicitly stated by its representatives since 2000. However, the reality of supporting research and development, innovation and overall economic performance at the threshold of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is different. Europe is significantly losing its global share in wealth creation. Therefore, the objective of the article is to identify relationships between the economic performance and the pro-innovation factors, which represents intensity of research and development at the level of national economy of the EU Member States. At their regional level, NUTS 2, the economic performance is compared with the pro-innovation factors, which are represented on the one hand as the proportion of employed persons with higher education or persons working in the field of science and technology, and on the other hand as the proportion of persons employed in the high-tech sector. Research has shown that the contribution of R&D spending to economic performance is not invariant, that there is probably a certain degree of saturation for which the increase in these expenditures is associated with lower increases in economic performance in the country. The results of the regional analysis can be used to infer the higher importance of persons employed in research and university-educated workers for the country's economic performance compared to the share of those employed in the high-tech sector.

This article deals with the industry structure of economy as a factor affecting an intensity of economic growth. Shifts in sectoral contributions to gross value added cause two distinctive trends in the development of labour productivity: firstly, by increasing the contribution of the secondary sector to gross value added, which causes the increase of the labour productivity of the whole national economy, and by increasing the contribution of the tertiary sector to gross value added, which causes decline in labour productivity across the whole national economy. Generally, it is considered that economic characteristics of each industry determine through their consistency economic characteristics of "their" enterprises. The research question is whether for the determination of economic performance and financial health of a company its individual result is more important, or whether these issues are predetermined by its industry classification. The aim is to show the example of the Czech economy, both the development of selected economic characteristics of each industry in the context of the changing sectoral structure of the national economy, and the differences in results of the assessment of financial-economic indicators among six selected industries and selected sample of 72 companies within these industries. On the basis of available statistical data, there are assessed trends in labour productivity, capital endowment of labour and selected indicators of financial analysis of industry group the "industry" and the "market services" in the Czech Republic, which show the main differences between both segments of the economy. But the focus of the article is on the research aimed at the degree of result differences in assessment of economic performance and financial health within each industry and among industries. Using the data of financial statements of assessed companies, there were calculated both ratio indicators and synthetic indicators of financial analysis and their results were compared for each company within each industry, within companies of the whole sample and of the industry average. There was assessed variability of indicators within each industry and among industries. Attention was concentrated on 5 ratio indicators of financial analysis (current liquidity, return on costs, costs to revenues ratio, capital turnover and financial leverage) and 2 synthetic indicators-the Altman's model of 2002 and the Czech Gründwald's model of 2001. The analysis certified that ratio indicators of financial analysis of companies within industries show slightly higher variability than ratio indicators among industries, but the assessment of industry indicators of variability shows their slightly higher values. For the synthetic indicators of financial analysis this issue cannot be concluded clearly because there is the crucial way of construction of these models. Based on the performed research, there were formulated two other conclusions, both for financial analysis of enterprises, and for guiding regional growth area.

One of the declared strategic objectives of the European Union is an increase of applied innovations. The article draws attention to the correlation between innovation

Both types of socioeconomic processes are strongly influenced by dynamics of technical and technological progress connected with science, research and innovation. It is undisputed that all of these aspects are affected not only by market forces, but they also are significantly influenced by political and other microeconomic parameters including so-called soft factors of growth. On the whole, it influences directly or indirectly behaviour of individual economic actors, especially private businesses which can cause government interference by return and all together provoke the macroeconomic impact sui generis. However, national economies are not isolated economic islands, but they are part of geographically defined economic units, as well as they may be part of institutionalized economic groupings. This article focuses on the development of investment efficiency in the globalized world including the role of technical and technological progress. The aim of the article is to capture differences in the development of wealth creation and allocated investments on continents with higher intensity of globalization processes i.e. after 1970. It will also assess the context of the sector structure of economies, particularly the global impact of intensive development of the tertiary sector and especially by continents. Particular attention is devoted to comparing the situation of two relatively small open economies the Czech Republic and Japan. They differ from each other by their relationship to integration groupings. The Czech economy is a small open economy and a part of the integration grouping-the European Union-since spring 2004. Japan is an island country, open in particular "way out", but still outside the integration grouping with a strong focus on its historical and cultural traditions. The authors are trying to answer the question to what extent and whether the integration of national economy affects positively its integration into higher integration units in the reality of the globalized world. Furthermore, they are trying to answer the question to what extent the dynamics of economic growth is affected by the ability of creation and use of science, research and innovation outcomes. Both of these two main streams of reasoning are interconnected in a subsequent assessment of the effect of economic growth and competitiveness of both countries. Each country is related to other continent with different expected characteristics of sector structures and investment activities, while there also is a perception of non-economic factors affecting the achievement of prosperity in the background. The fundamental basis is the holistic approach, which enables to perceive economic issues from taking a bird's-eye view, look away from specific details and enable them to subsequent return, especially since they affect the integrity in the result. It is possible to draw useful conclusions for potential acceleration of economic growth from these relevant facts. As a tool to achieve goals is the application of standard methods of econ...

The presented paper deals with the regionalization of the electoral support of the Czech Pirate Party (Pirates) in regional elections using methods and techniques of spatial data analysis. The aim is to answer the question whether the territorial distribution of Pirate electoral support allows this party to participate in governance at the regional level and thus influence the form of regional policy in individual regions. The results of the analysis show that the spatial distribution of Pirates’ electoral support in regional elections differed quite significantly not only from the pattern found in the elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament and elections to the European Parliament, but also between individual regional elections. This suggests the current lack of anchorage of Pirates’ electoral support in regional politics, but at the same time, it may have its origins in the second-order character of regional elections and the candidacy of many local and regional entities in regional elections. On the other hand, the results of the regional elections in 2020 meant that the Pirates received seats in all regional councils, but especially in nine of the thirteen regions they joined the regional government (similarly to two years earlier when they joined government of capital city of Prague), gaining the opportunity to influence, with regard to its priorities, the form of regional governance in most Czech regions.