The impact of national intellectual capital on the economic growth in the South-Eastern European Countries

In the contemporary circumstances, intellectual capital has become the engine of the economic, social and cultural development. Mobilization and utilization of intellectual resources in enterprises create value, thus transforming and accelerating development of national economies towards the knowledge and innovation based economies. Due to these reasons, the most developed economies increase investments in education, information technologies and stimulate innovativeness. On the other hand, less developed countries do not have possibilities for significant investments in creating and employing national intellectual potential. This is reflected in their economic growth rates, as in the case of the Southeastern European (SEE) countries. In that regard, the paper investigates the impact of education, information technologies and innovations, as determinants of national intellectual capital development, on the economic growth in the SEE countries. The aim of this paper is to identify the contribution of the key intellectual capital determinants to the economic growth and development in the SEE countries and propose measures whose implementation lead to further development towards knowledge and innovation economies. The results of correlation analysis revealed positive and statistically significant correlation between GDP per capita and employed measures of national intellectual capital. The research has shown that increase in high-technology export, number of R&D researchers and mobile phone subscribers has a positive and significant impact on economic growth. The authors advise intensified cooperation between business community and institutes and universities to achieve synergetic effects in generating and utilising national intellectual potential.