International Competitiveness in the Economics Literature: A Bibliometric Study

This paper has as its main aim to consolidate the state of the art of academic research on international competitiveness, based on a bibliometric study of the economics literature published over the past 70 years. Citation data is collected from the ISI WEB of Science website, Scopus and Google Scholar and is analysed using Histcite and Vosviewer software. The growth pattern of the international competitiveness literature is investigated by using bibliometric indicators and co?citation analysis, and the core journals, authors and key international competitiveness research domains are identified. The results of the analysis show that international competitiveness is still an important and popular subject of studies in economics. Publications by Krugman, Fagerber and Balassa have made the greatest contributions to the development of international competitiveness concept. Journals with a general economic profile such as the American Economic Review, the Economic Journal and the Journal of International Economics have been most significant in terms of knowledge diffusion on international competitiveness. Additionally, co?citation analysis allows four main topics in international competitiveness research to be identified: skill & innovation; place & globalization; technology and environment.