The impact of geothermal resources on the competitiveness of municipalities: evidence from Poland

In addition to large-scale environmental benefits, geothermal resources are nowadays expected to deliver an endogenous competitive advantage. The aim of this paper is to investigate this phenomenon for Poland. Since geothermal resources are of an endogenous nature, we assume their competitive advantage character for eleven selected municipalities in Poland. A municipality competitiveness model is built using an expert method. Panel data analysis is used to estimate four models of geothermal competitiveness. A sensitive analysis examines if the results are dependent on the model we developed. All four model scenarios are robust. The results show that the geothermal estimators significantly impact the created municipality competitiveness indicator. The geothermal energy production and geothermal bathing centres are both significant elements of municipality competitiveness in Poland. Therefore, this paper provides an argument for further expansion of the extraction of the available geothermal resources in Poland.