BALANCING NATIONAL SECURITY AND COMPETITIVENESS IN THE AGE OF INFORMATION

Abstract

A secure environment plays a crucial role in the overall stability of the economy, having an impact and contributing to its competitiveness. Although an absence of security risks cannot certainly drive the country's economic development and competitiveness, its existence would definitely have far-reaching consequences for the economy. The paper aims to analyze the national security of the European (EU) countries and Serbia, reflected in the following security indicators: business costs of terrorism, business costs of crime and violence, organized crime, and the reliability of policy services. In this context, the study provides a comparative analysis of the mentioned indicators in order to assess their trend, as well as the correlation between national security and national competitiveness with the aim to determine how national security affects national competitiveness. The empirical analysis of the study includes 28 EU member countries and Serbia as a candidate country, covering the period from 2011 to 2017, with data available in the Global Competitiveness Reports. The findings of this study allow for a better understanding of the overall national security and its impact on the national competitiveness in the context of the EU and Serbia.