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The purpose of this paper is to use a newly developed Global Liveable Cities Index (GLCI), to assess how Abu Dhabi ranks among global cities. The paper sheds some light on the strengths and weaknesses associated with the city’s emergence as a global city, as identified by the index.

This paper makes use of a new measure of liveability – the GLCI – to rank the world ' s major cities. The GLCI advances the measurement of the “Liveability” construct by taking into account the multi-dimensional sensibility of diverse groups of ordinary persons across 64 cities. The paper also conducts policy simulations to help aid city planners invest in areas with low scores in the GLCI.

The results from the analysis show Abu Dhabi as a city that has a lot more potential than what most conventional city benchmarking exercises have revealed. It is a city with immense potential in the region by not just being the driver of growth but also being a nodal center for attraction of global talent. It is fast growing into a city of opportunity and already satisfies the characteristics of an emerging global city with a lot of regional attention. The empirical results also find that its potential has been clearly under-rated by many existing studies and indices primarily because of their narrow scope in measuring liveability. The GLCI results brought together multiple indicators to devise an index that is strongly based on a combination of analytical and philosophical values. Taking stock of the rankings of Abu Dhabi using the GLCI so far as well as the policy simulations, one can conclude that Abu Dhabi has multiple strengths as an aspiring global city. The results also indicate that one area that has been consistently identified as lacking in Abu Dhabi is that of environmental sustainability.

While cities have always played a historic role in powering economic growth in some form or the other, the scale of expansions and the speed at which it is happening today appears unprecedented. While a considerable number of indices benchmarking cities exist, they are rather narrow in scope. None of them model liveability from the perspective of an ordinary person with multi-dimensional sensibilities toward issues like economic well-being, social mobility, personal security, political governance, environmental sustainability and aesthetics for a more representative coverage of major cities around the world. These factors are critical measures of “liveability” of a city that in turn elevates it to the status of a global city. This paper thus makes an original contribution to the literature on understanding global cities by applying a newly developed GLCI to assess how Abu Dhabi ranks among global cities. The paper sheds some light on the strengths and weaknesses associated with the city’s emergence as a global city, as identified by the index.

The ultimate goal of competitiveness is the well being of the citizens of a country. From this perspective, this study investigates the contribution of international competitiveness on per capita income, human development, and inequality in 45 countries of the world. Correlation and regression analysis were conducted to determine the relationships. The results indicate that international competitiveness positively influences per capita income and human development. Competitiveness also influences the reduction of inequality in a country. Longitudinal studies with more country data needs to be conducted to further the relationships established through cross‐sectional research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the firm-level drivers of competitiveness of the Czech small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) using the complex firm-level competitiveness index. The authors explored the relationship between firm competitiveness and firm characteristics such as size, age, industry affiliation and location.

The complex competitiveness index as a proxy for firm competitiveness was calculated from the survey data. In total, 132 complete questionnaires filled in by representatives of randomly selected Czech SMEs were collected in 2018. Additional firm characteristics (size, age, industry affiliation and location) considered as determinants of competitiveness were obtained from the commercial database Albertina and from the Czech Statistical Office. The determinants of competitiveness were tested econometrically by estimation of multivariate regression models.

The authors mainly found a significant relationship between the firm size and competitiveness of the Czech SMEs. The authors have also confirmed that the least competitive enterprises are those operating in the agricultural sector and that regional location plays an important role in the determination of firm competitiveness.

The identification of competitiveness drivers can provide entrepreneurs, managers and policymakers with important implications. It seems beneficial for the Czech SMEs to expand the scope of operations to achieve a larger company size, for example, by focussing on investment activities, direct marketing, improving entrepreneurial skills or by applying an aggressive sales strategy, especially towards markets with lower competition. Politicians may respond to these efforts by setting the appropriate policies that promote SMEs’ competitiveness, for example, through the hard and soft public support for financial and human resources.

Although many studies on competitiveness have been published, there is still a limited number of firm-level studies looking at competitiveness from multiple angles rather than from the study of profitability and productivity. In contrast, the study uses a complex firm-level competitiveness index based on ten competitiveness pillars (technology, human capital, products, domestic market, networks, international markets, online presence, marketing, decision making and strategy) to capture the contribution of different resources and capabilities to firm competitiveness.

Developing composite index-regional entrepreneurship, technological readiness and institution quality index (RETRIQ) of regional entrepreneurship, technology readiness and quality of institution to measure regional competitiveness. This study, also, aims to test econometrically the effectiveness of the index in capturing the economic performance of the sub-national regions.

The data of eight indicators used in the index are from sources available freely in the public domain. The causal relationship analysis is done using panel data of 10 years from 2008 to 2017 for 32 Indian states/union territories. The generalized method of moments (GMM) is used for this dynamic regression estimation.

Based on RETRIQ, 32 states and union territories of India have ranked. The estimation using GMM shows a significant association between the composite index and economic growth.

The limitations of the study include the broad assumption that these sub-national regions belong to a uniform macro-economic and technology environment and data constraints as it is a longitudinal study. Then, the implication of the study is that the composite index-RETRIQ could capture differences in regional competitiveness explaining regional economic disparity.

The index will be useful for policy implications in the assessment of competitiveness disparity.

It is a composite index of regional entrepreneurship, technological readiness and quality of the institution. The panel data across states along 10 years series is novel.

Comparative advantage is an important indicator in the analysis of international trade flow; however, in empirical studies on agriculture it is often neglected. The purpose of this paper is to analyse global comparative advantage in the European Union (EU) wine industry and to test the duration and stability of trade indices.

The paper applies the theory of comparative advantages by using the Balassa indices to European wine trade (based on the 16 biggest producers) data from the period 2000-2013. Moreover, it applies stability and duration analysis on comparative advantages calculated.

Results suggest that Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain are the highest ranked European wine producers in the world market and have the largest comparative advantages. However, duration and stability tests indicate that trade advantages have weakened for the majority of these countries. The paper discusses a number of reasons for this downturn, including changes to Common Agricultural Policy wine regulation, economic crisis, and the rise of New World wine producers.

The originality of the paper is that it applies the theory of comparative advantage to top wine exporters in the EU. The paper also makes valuable contributions to the wine literature by analysing the duration and stability of comparative advantage in the global wine trade. Moreover, the identification of industry-specific causes for changing patterns in comparative advantage in the EU might be important to the wine industry.

The unequal distribution of economic activities, transposed in economic, social and territorial disparities is the general characteristic of the European economy. Gaps increased in the context of European Union (EU) enlargement towards Eastern and Central Europe and of the economic crisis, thus bringing new differentiations among member states’ economies. The main aim of the chapter is to emphasise the centre-periphery differentiations in the European economy, by using a composite index of peripherality, in order to better understand the determinants of growth and convergence in Central and Eastern European countries and to reach normative conclusions for increasing Cohesion Policy (CP) effectiveness. The first part of the chapter provides a short overview of the main theories and models of the peripherality analysis and the relationships between the centre and the periphery, in order to find out how this analysis relates to the research in the field. The second part provides a comparative analysis of the evolution of European economies during 2003–2014, in order to find out whether the EU enlargement process stabilised the EU core-periphery pattern or, on the contrary, the process of core-periphery structural convergence occurred. The third part includes the suggested model of analysis (methodology, data, and main results) from a multidisciplinary perspective, underlining the centre-periphery differentiations on the two axes, North–South and West–East. The results have been interpreted in conclusions, with a focus on their relevance for the European CP challenges.

This paper aims to explain the empirical relationship between competitiveness and economic growth in a globalizing world. In recent times, the advanced economies have experienced a slowdown of growth, whereas the BRICS countries continue to experience high growth. The authors explore the following question: Does competitiveness of nations’ degree of competition explains this differential in growth? The authors explore competiveness and growth in a macroeconomic perspective for the large economies in the OECD and BRICS countries.

The authors use dynamic panel data modelling technique to find the relationship between competitiveness and economic growth. This technique enables to control heterogeneity problem of this group to some extent. The focus variable of this study is annual GDP growth rate for the period 2007-2017. The proxies for measuring competitiveness in this paper are trade as percentage of GDP, product market regulation, unit labour cost and global competitive index. Innovation prevalence of foreign ownership, efficiency, competition, state of cluster development, venture capital availability, extent of market, research and development expenditure as percentage of the GDP mergers and acquisitions and multifactor productivity are the control variables.

The authors find that the degree of competitiveness competition is less likely to impact economic growth in the OECD countries because they have more or less similar competitive environment. Innovation, extent of market and state of cluster development and venture capital availability explaining growth differential. Increased competition is likely to affect growth negatively. This explains the oligopolistic structures of the world economy. However, the BRICS countries vary significantly in competitive environment. This is the reason of volatility in their growth. The conclusion is that competitiveness is important for sustained growth. Competitiveness is, however, an outcome of a set of policies, not a policy itself.

Productivity data for OECD and BRICS countries are not available. Various series are not comparable. OECD countries have discontinued yearly unit labour cost series, and high frequency series are available but no such series for BRICS exists.

First, this paper proposes that wage growth, measured by the unit labour cost growth rate, is an important determinant of competitiveness amongst the nations. Wage growth is falling short of productivity growth in the OECD countries. This has implications for the long run sustainability of growth, skill development and inequalities in the region. Since 2011, world economic recovery is slow. Wage growth is imperative for generating sufficient private demand in the OECD countries. Second, this paper provides evidence that competitiveness is important for explaining growth in the OECD and the BRICS countries. However, it also highlights that competitiveness can be measured effectively by the trade differential or with the help of unit labour cost. Unaligned real effective exchange rate in terms of unit labour costs is the real cause of the problem.

Research in this area is still in infancy. This research finds that how competitiveness affects growth. A more competitive nation can sell more, but not necessarily grow rapidly. In development process, growth comes first, and at the latter stages, countries have to introduce effective reforms for competitiveness. This is the effect of competitiveness on growth by comparing various indexes.

Globalization speeds up competition among nations in various sectors. In terms of multinational and transnational phenomena, countries are seen as inescapable from competition, thus the linking of the term global with “competitiveness.” The research described here explores the relationship between the competitiveness of a country and its implications for human development. For this purpose, using data envelopment analysis (DEA) and cluster analysis, 44 selected countries were evaluated. An output-oriented super-efficiency model where global competitiveness indicators are taken as input variables with human development indicators as output variables is utilized. Then cluster analysis depending on the competitiveness and human development indicators is conducted by using self-organizing maps to specify the development levels of the countries. Both analyses are repeated for years between 2005 and 2007. Finally, the relationship between the super efficiency scores and the development levels is analyzed.

This paper aims to analyze thoroughly all of the sources of research used to develop the money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF) low-risk rating, a rating attained by Norway according to the Basel Institute of Governance, and determine the reasons why Norway is one of only two countries in the world according to the 2012 report, with the other being Estonia, to gain an overall low-risk ML and TF rating.

The differences between the USA and Norway which has obtained a low-risk ranking, were compared and contrasted.

Beginning with the Basel Institute Rating index as a legitimate source for use in assessing anti-money-laundering (AML)/TF risk, and the amount of documentation used in the index’s methodology, it has been proven that the low-risk rating Norway has received is well deserved, and that the US rating of medium risk is also deserved for the time the report was published. Achieving a low-risk rating is not as ambiguous as recently thought and neither is its application on a global scale.

The paper identifies practical areas of improvement and concerns in addressing the overall issue of ML and terrorist financing.

This study investigates the effects of fiscal decentralization on global competitiveness through the level of corruption. This study aims to clarify the causal impacts of fiscal decentralization policy on the achievement of competitiveness rank considering the degree of corruption in a country.

The paper uses an empirical study using both cross-country arithmetic mean and panel data, covering ten-year period (2005-2014). The analysis uses both linear and non-linear specification in search of actual intermediating effects of corruption with controlling the possible endogeneity.

The paper provides empirical insights about corruption effects of fiscal decentralization on global competitiveness. It suggests that increasing level of fiscal decentralization has a positive contribution to competitiveness for the less-corrupt countries. The adverse effects appear for corrupt countries where the delegation of fiscal authority should endanger the country competitiveness.

This research exploits the well-known measurement of fiscal decentralization, the degree of corruption and competitiveness. Therefore, this measurement might be challenged for representing the real concept of decentralization, corruption and competitiveness, furthermore its relationship. Despite the limitation, this research explores the entanglement of fiscal decentralization, corruption and competitiveness.

The paper provides the implications for the national policymakers about decentralizing the fiscal authority to achieve higher competitiveness level, through assessing their state of corruption.

The research provides additional comments for Oates’ (1972) decentralization theorem in connection to competitiveness, by adding corruption level as pre-requisite condition.