RANKING OF CROATIAN CITIES ACCORDING TO HELLWIG'S INFORMATION CAPACITY METHOD IN THE SMART ECONOMY DIMENSION

The main objective of this research is to determine whether the size of the city by population is a prerequisite for better economic development and ranking of Croatian cities based on the weighted average z-score of smart economy indicators related to entrepreneurial potential, tourism, information comunication technology [ICT] and research and development [R&D] sector. The sample for this research consists of 127 Croatian cities and ten smart economy indicators. The Hellwig's information capacity method uses only statistically significant indicators, on the basis of which the weights are determined when creating the Smart Economy Indeks. The results of the analyses suggest that the number of positively ranked cities decreases as the city population size decreases: 100 % large cities are positively rated, 48 % medium cities and 6 % small cities.